Encyclopaedia Britannica - BestLightNovel.com
You’re reading novel Encyclopaedia Britannica Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 Part 35 online at BestLightNovel.com. Please use the follow button to get notification about the latest chapter next time when you visit BestLightNovel.com. Use F11 button to read novel in full-screen(PC only). Drop by anytime you want to read free – fast – latest novel. It’s great if you could leave a comment, share your opinion about the new chapters, new novel with others on the internet. We’ll do our best to bring you the finest, latest novel everyday. Enjoy
BALTA, a town in the Russian government of Podolia, between the Dniester and the Bug, 131 m. by rail N.N.W. of Odessa. It carries on a large trade in cattle, horses and grain, and has two annual fairs, held at Whitsuntide and in June. A variety of industries, such as tallow-melting, soap-boiling, tile-making and brewing, are carried on. The Jews form a very considerable part of the population, which in 1867 numbered 14,528, and in 1897, 23,393.
Balta was in great part destroyed by the Russians in 1780.
BALTARD, LOUIS PIERRE (1764-1846), French architect and engraver, was born in Paris on the 9th of July 1764. He was originally a landscape painter, but in his travels through Italy was so much struck with the beauty of the Italian buildings, that he changed his profession and devoted himself to architecture. In his new occupation he achieved great success, and was selected to prepare the plans for some of the largest public edifices in Paris. His reputation, however, is chiefly based on his great skill in engraving. Among the best known of his plates are the drawings of Paris (_Paris et ses monuments_, 2 vols. fol., 1803), the engravings for Denon's _egypte_, the ill.u.s.trations of Napoleon's wars (_La Colonne de la grande armee_), and those contained in the series ent.i.tled the _Grand prix de l'architecture_, which for some time he carried on alone. He also gained distinction as an engraver of portraits. Baltard died in Paris on the 22nd of January 1846.
Two of his children were also architects. Of these the more important was VICTOR BALTARD (1805-1874), who was born in Paris on the 19th of June 1805.
In 1833 he gained the _prix de Rome_ at the ecole des beaux-arts for designing a military school. He was largely instrumental in introducing a regular scheme of fresco decoration by modern artists in the churches of Paris, to take the place of the heterogeneous collections of pictures of all kinds with which their walls had been promiscuously decorated. He built many additions to existing churches, and also the church of St Augustin, in which he united the structural values of stone and steel. His most popular achievement was, however, the building of the central market in Paris.
Victor Baltard also built the slaughter houses and the cattle market of La Villette. He died in Paris on the 13th of January 1874, after a life of great activity in his profession.
BALTIC SEA (Scand. and Ger. _Ostsee_; Russ. _Baltiyskoe More_), a sea extending between 54 and 66 N. lat., and 9 and 30 E. long., surrounded by the territories of Sweden, Russia, Germany and Denmark. Its greatest length is about 960 m.; greatest breadth about 400 m.; and length of coast-line, 5000 m.; the central axis runs approximately from south-west to north-east. The Baltic is connected with North Sea by the winding channel between the south of Scandinavia and the Cimbrian peninsula. This channel is usually included in the Baltic. The part of it west of a line joining the Skaw with Christiania fjord receives the name of Skagerrak; the part east of this line is called the Kattegat. At its southern end the Kattegat is blocked by the Danish islands, and it communicates with the Baltic proper by narrow channels called the Sound, the Great Belt and the Little Belt. The real physical boundary between the North Sea and the Baltic is formed by the plateau on which the islands Zealand, Funen and Laaland are situated, and its prolongation from the islands Falster and Moen to the coasts of Mecklenburg and Rugen.
East of this plateau the Baltic proper forms a series of hollows or troughs. The first, or Bornholm deep, lies east of the island of Bornholm, and is separated from the next, or Gotland deep, by the Middelbank. Beyond the Middelbank the Danziger Tiefe, an isolated depression, lies to the south-east, while to the northeast the Gotland basin, the largest and deepest of all, extends north-eastwards to the Gulf of Finland. Along the Swedish coast a deep channel runs northward from outside the island of oland; this is entirely cut off to the south and east by a bank which sweeps eastward and northward from near Karlskrona, and on which the island of Gotland stands, but it communicates at its northern end with the Gotland deep, and near the junction opposite Landsort is the deepest hole in the Baltic (420 metres = 230 fathoms).
An unbroken ridge, extending from Stockholm to Hango in Finland, separates the Baltic basin proper from the depression between Sweden and the land Isles, to which the name land Haf has been given. North of the land Haf a ridge defines the southern edge of another depression, the Bothnian Sea, which in turn is separated from the most northerly division, the Gulf of Bothnia, by a ridge across the narrow Quarken or Kvarken Strait. The Gotland deep may be said to extend directly into the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic, running eastwards for about 250 m., and separating Finland from Esthonia. Between Esthonia and Courland is the Gulf of Riga, a shallow inlet of roughly circular form, about 100 m. in diameter, and nowhere more than 27 fathoms deep.
According to recent computations the total area of the Baltic, including the Skagerrak and Kattegat, is 166,397 sq. m., and its volume 6907 cub. m., giving a mean depth of 36 fathoms, which is markedly less than that of any other arm of the sea of similar area.
In the deeper hollows in the south part of the Baltic the bottom consists almost invariably of either soft brown or grey mud or hard clay, while on the shallow banks and near the low coasts fine sand, of white, yellow or brown colour with small pebbles, is usually found.
[v.03 p.0286]
[Sidenote: Coasts--changes and character.]
At the time of the last great subsidence, in glacial times, an arm of the sea extended across Sweden, submerging a great part of the littoral up to the Gulf of Bothnia, and including the present lakes Vener, Hjelmar and Malar. During this period the waters of the northern Baltic were sufficiently salt for oysters to flourish. The subsequent upheaval restricted direct communication with the open sea to the Danish channels, and the Baltic waters became fresher: the oyster disappeared, but a number of cold salt-water fishes and crustaceans, and even seals, became acclimatized. It has been suggested that the presence of the remains of these animals indicates a communication to the north with the Arctic Ocean; but in view of the severe climatic conditions still prevailing at the time, this seems an unnecessary a.s.sumption. In the next stage of its history the Baltic is transformed by further elevation into a vast freshwater lake, the _Ancylus_ lake of G. de Geer (named from the remains of the mollusc _Ancylus fluviatilis_), which is supposed to have covered an area of about 220,000 sq. m., including the whole of the present Baltic area and a large part of Finland, with Lake Ladoga. Then followed a subsidence, which not only re-established communication through the Danish channels, but allowed the Baltic to become sufficiently salt for such forms as _Cardium edule_ and _Littorina littorea_. At this time the Gulf of Bothnia must have suffered greater depression than the Baltic proper, for the deposits of that epoch show a thickness of 100 metres (328 ft.) near Hernosand, but of only 25 metres (82 ft.) in the neighbourhood of Gotland. After this period of subsidence the process of elevation set in which gave the Baltic its present form and physical condition, and appears to be still in progress.
Dr R. Sieger has traced a series of isobasic lines, or lines of equal rate of elevation, for portions of Sweden and Finland; these indicate that the movement is now almost _nil_ along the axial lines of the Baltic and the Gulf of Finland, but increases in amplitude northwards to the Gulf of Bothnia and in the direction of the main ridge of the _ma.s.sif_ of southern Sweden. At Stockholm the rate of elevation is approximately 0.47 metre (= 1.54 ft.) in a century.
The coast of the Baltic is rocky only in the island-studded region at the head of the Baltic basin proper--a submerged lake-district--and the littoral generally is a typical morainic land, the work of the last great Baltic glacier. The southern margin of the Baltic is of peculiar interest.
From Schleswig eastwards to Lubeck Bay the coast is pierced by a number of narrow openings or _Fohrden_, the result of encroachment of the sea caused by subsidence. East of Lubeck, as far as the mouth of the Oder, these give place to _Bodden_, ramified openings studded with islands: the structure here resembles that of Scania in southern Sweden, a region once joined to both Denmark and Pomerania by an isthmus which was severed by tectonic movements. Beyond the Oder the coast-line is unbroken as far as the Gulf of Danzig. It is then cut into by the estuaries of the Vistula, the Pregel and the Memel. Here the westerly winds have full play, and the coast is rimmed by a continuous line of dunes, which cut off the two great lagoons of the _Frisches Haff_ and _Kurisches Haff_ by sandspits or _Nehrungen_.
The drainage area of the Baltic is relatively large. According to the measurements of Sir J. Murray it extends to 461,450 sq. sea m. ( = 611,700 sq. English m.) The largest river-basin included in it is that of the Neva in the east, and next in size come the Vistula and the Oder in the south.
The narrow parallel troughs, at right angles to the coast, which form the drainage-system of Sweden and western Finland, are a remarkable feature.
[Sidenote: Level.]
Levellings from Swinemunde show that the mean level of the surface of the Baltic at that point is 0.093 metres (= .305 ft.) below the surface of the North Sea at Amsterdam, and 0.066 metres ( = .216 ft.) below its level at Ostend. A line of levels from Swinemunde through Eger to the Adriatic showed the mean level of the surface of the Baltic to be 0.499 metres (1.6 ft.) above that of the Adriatic Sea. The mean level of the surface of the Baltic rises about 0.5 metres (1.6 ft.) from the coast of Holstein to Memel, probably as a result of the prevailing westerly winds; this mean difference is exceeded with strong westerly winds, and disappears or is reversed with easterly winds. The waves of the Baltic are usually short and irregular, often dangerous to navigation. Destructive waves, probably caused by distant earthquakes, called _Seebaren_ (cf. English "bores") have been recorded.
The range of the tides is about one foot at Copenhagen; within the Baltic proper ordinary tides are scarcely perceptible. There is, however, a distinctly marked annual rise and fall due to meteorological influences having a mean range of about 11.4 cm. (0.37 ft.), at Travemunde, and 13.9 cm. (0.46 ft.) at Swinemunde, the maximum occurring at the end of the summer rainy period in August.
[Sidenote: Circulation.]
The circulation of water in the Baltic proper must be considered apart from the circulation in the channels connecting it with the North Sea; and in this relation the plateau connecting the islands Falster and Moen with the coast of Mecklenburg and Rugen must be taken as the dividing line. In the great basins and hollows from Rugen to the Gulfs of Bothnia and Finland the upper layers of water, from 30 to 70 metres (16 to 38 fathoms) in thickness, have almost the same salinity throughout. In these waters a vertical circulation is kept up by convection currents. Beneath these layers are ma.s.ses of salter water, through which a thermal wave of small amplitude is slowly propagated to the bottom by conduction. These strata are practically stagnant, deficient in oxygen and surcharged with carbonic acid. Their salter waters must have been originally derived from outside, and must therefore have pa.s.sed over the plateau between Falster and Mecklenburg, but their horizontal extension is checked by the ridges separating the deep hollows in the Baltic from each other. The inflow to the deep basins is intermittent, probably with a long period of flux and reflux.
The circulation in the channels connecting the Baltic proper with the North Sea is of a complex character. It is necessary in the first place to distinguish clearly between outflowing and inflowing waters; in practice this is easily done, as the outflowing water always contains less than 30 parts _pro mille_ of salt, and the inflowing water more than 32 _pro mille_. The Baltic receives much more water by rainfall, discharge of rivers, &c., than it loses by evaporation; hence a surplus must be got rid of by an outflowing current which may be named the "Baltic Stream." The following general laws may be laid down with regard to this:--
1. That the Baltic Stream must be a surface current, because it originates from a redundancy of fresh water.
2. That, on account of the earth's rotation, the main part of the Baltic Stream must keep close to the coast of the Scandinavian peninsula.
3. That it must be a periodic stream, because the discharge of the rivers into the Baltic varies with the season of the year. In spring and summer the water from the Baltic is sufficiently abundant to inundate the whole surface of the Kattegat and Skagerrak, but in winter the sources of the Baltic current are for the most part dried up by the freezing of the land water.
All the waters which enter the Skagerrak or Kattegat as undercurrents can be found at the surface of the North Sea (_q.v._). They may be divided according to their origin and salinity as follows:--
(a) _Ocean water_ of 35 _pro mille_ salinity or more.
(b) _North Sea water_, the predominant water in the North Sea area, of 34 to 35 _pro mille_ salinity.
(c) _Bank water_, 32 to 34 _pro mille_, which forms a broad edging covering the coast banks of Holland, Germany, Denmark and Norway.
The deepest water stratum in the Skagerrak is certainly of oceanic origin; it has been found to suffer changes of long period, and it is probably not always composed of water derived from the same part or the same depth of the North Atlantic; this water is, as a rule, deficient in oxygen. The "North Sea" water, of 34 to 35 _pro mille_ salinity, does not appear at the surface in the Skagerrak, except as a strip along part of the coast of Jutland, but it is always found as an undercurrent overlying the oceanic water. It enters into all the deep coast channels, and into the Christiania fjord, but it is not always found in the deep channels of the Kattegat. The princ.i.p.al time of inflow of North Sea water is during spring and summer.
The bank-water of 32 to 34 _pro mille_ salinity is found all along the continental coast of the North Sea and North Atlantic, and it may therefore enter the Skagerrak either from the North Sea or from the north along the coast of Norway. It is probable indeed that an influx of this water occurs from both directions--in August and September from the south, and in the late winter and early spring from the north. The seasonal changes in the distribution of the bank-waters in different parts of the coast are too complex to be briefly explained; their relations to the times of occurrence of various fisheries of the region present many remarkable features, which have been investigated in recent years by the Swedish Commission.
On the west and south coasts of Sweden, and in the Skagerrak south-east of Norway, navigation is interfered with by ice only in severe winters, and then the ice is usually drifting, compact sea-ice being very rare. Between Stockholm and Visby navigation usually ceases at the end of December and begins again about the 10th of April. During very severe winters the land Sea is covered with thick ice available for traffic. The south part of the Gulf of Bothnia is covered with ice every winter along the coasts, but rarely, if ever, in its central part. Navigation is interrupted by drifting ice from about the middle of November to the beginning of May, though the port of Hernosand has been known to remain open during a whole winter. The northern Quarken is covered with traversable ice every third or fourth year. The northern part of the Gulf of Bothnia is frozen every winter. In the Gulf of Finland the sea is closed to navigation by ice for about 150 days in the year; but navigation is rendered possible throughout the winter by the use of ice-breakers.
See references to different parts of the subject in the standard books of A. Penck, A. de Lapparent, E. Suess and others. Also Credner, _Die Entstehung der Ostsee_ (Leipzig, 1895); G. de Geer, _Om Skandinaviens nivforandringar under quartarperioden_ (Stockholm, 1888); R. Sieger, _Seeenschw.a.n.kungen und Strandverschiebungen in Skandinavien_ (Berlin, 1893); O. Pettersson, "Review of Swedish Hydrographic Research," _Scottish Geographical Magazine_ (1894); N. Ekholm, _Om klimatets andringar i geologisk och historisk tid. Ymer_ (Stockholm, 1899); _Publications of the International Council for the Study of the Sea_ (Copenhagen, since 1902).
(H. N. D.)
[v.03 p.0287] BALTIMORE, GEORGE CALVERT, 1ST BARON (_c._ 1580-1632), English statesman, son of Leonard Calvert, and Alice, daughter of John Crosland of Crosland, was born at Kipling in Yorks.h.i.+re and educated at Trinity College, Oxford. After travelling on the continent, he entered the public service as secretary to Robert Cecil, afterwards earl of Salisbury.
In 1606 he was appointed clerk of the crown in Connaught and Clare, in 1608 a clerk of the council, and was returned to parliament for Bossiney in 1609. He a.s.sisted James I. in his discourse against Vorstius, the Arminian theological professor of Leiden, and in 1613 took charge of the Spanish and Italian correspondence. The same year he was sent on a mission to Ireland to investigate grievances. For these services he was rewarded by knighthood in 1617, followed by a secretarys.h.i.+p of state in 1619 and a pension of 2000 a year in 1620. He represented successively Yorks.h.i.+re (1621) and Oxford University (1624) in the House of Commons, where it fell to him in his official capacity to communicate the king's policy and to obtain supplies. He was distrusted by the parliament, and was in favour of the unpopular alliance with Spain and the Spanish marriage. Shortly after the failure of the scheme he declared himself a Roman Catholic, and on the 12th of February 1625 threw up his office, when he was created Baron Baltimore of Baltimore and received a grant of large estates in Ireland. Henceforth he was seen little in public life and his attention was directed to colonial enterprise, with which his name will be always a.s.sociated. He had established a small settlement in Newfoundland in 1621, for which under the name of Avalon he procured a charter in 1623, and which he himself visited in 1627. In consequence of disputes and the unsuitable nature of the climate he sailed thence for Virginia, but was forbidden to settle there unless he took the oaths of allegiance and supremacy. He returned home, and died on the 15th of April 1632 before a new concession was secured, the charter of Maryland pa.s.sing the great seal on the 20th of June 1632 in favour of his son Cecilius, second Lord Baltimore, who founded the colony.
Baltimore married Anne, daughter of George Mynne of Hurlingfordbury, Hertfords.h.i.+re, by whom he had six sons and five daughters. He wrote _Carmen funebre in D. Hen. Untonum_ (1596); _The Answer to Tom Tell-Troth ..._ (1642) is also attributed to him, and Wood mentions Baltimore as having composed "something concerning Maryland." His letters are to be found in various publications, including Strafford's _Letters_, _Clarendon State Papers_ and the _Calendars of State Papers_.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--_George and Cecilius Calvert_ by William Hand Browne (1890); article by C. H. Firth in the _Dict. of Nat. Biog._ with references there given; Wood's _Athenae Oxonienses_ (Bliss) ii. 522; Doyle's, _The English in America_; _Discourse on the Life and Character of Sir G. Calvert_ by J. P. Kennedy (1845), with the _Review_ and the _Reply_ to the same; _London Magazine_, June 1768; "Sir G. Calvert," by L. W. Wilhelm (_Maryland Hist. Soc_., 14th April 1884); _The Nation_, vol. 70, p. 95; _American Historical Review_, vol. 5, p. 577.
BALTIMORE, a city and seaport, and the metropolis of Maryland, U.S.A., the 7th city in population in the United States. It is at the head of tide-water on the Patapsco river and its middle and north-west branches where they form an estuary 12 m. from the entrance of their waters into Chesapeake Bay, in lat. 39 17' N. and long. 76 37' W., about 172 m. by water from the Atlantic Ocean, 40 m. by rail N.W. from Was.h.i.+ngton, 26 m. N.
by W. from Annapolis, 97 m. S.W. from Philadelphia, and 184 m. from New York. Pop. (1890) 434,439; (1900) 508,957 of whom 79,258 were negroes, and 68,600 foreign-born (of these 33,208 were natives of Germany, 10,493 of Russia, 9690 of Ireland, 2841 of England, 2811 of Poland, 2321 of Bohemia and 2042 of Italy); (1910, census) 558,485. It is served by the Baltimore & Ohio, the Philadelphia, Baltimore & Was.h.i.+ngton (the Pennsylvania system), the Baltimore & Annapolis Short Line, the Baltimore, Chesapeake & Atlantic; the Northern Central; the Western Maryland and the Maryland & Pennsylvania railways; and by steams.h.i.+p lines running directly to all the more important ports on the Atlantic coast of the United States, to ports in the West Indies and Brazil, to London, Liverpool, Southampton, Bristol, Leith, Glasgow, Dublin, Belfast, Havre, Antwerp, Rotterdam, Bremen, Hamburg and other European ports.
The city extends nearly 6 m. from E. to W., and except on the W. side a little more than 5 m. from N. to S., covering an area of about 32 sq. m.
The ground on which it is built is for the most part gently rolling; originally some portions were swampy and others were marked by precipitous heights, but the swamps have been drained and filled and the heights rounded off. Jones's Falls, a small stream shut in between granite walls several feet in height, crosses the N. boundary line a short distance W. of its middle, flows S.E. to the S.E. corner of the main business quarter, and there meets the north-west branch of the Patapsco, in which lies the harbour, defended at its entrance by the historic Fort McHenry, built at the S.E. extremity of Locust Point, an irregular peninsula extending S.E., on which are grain-elevators and a number of wharves, including those of the Baltimore & Ohio railway.
That part of the city which lies E. of Jones's Falls is known as East Baltimore, and is in turn nominally divided into Fells' Point to the S. and E., now a s.h.i.+pbuilding and manufacturing quarter, and Old Town to the N.
and W. In the Old Town still remain a few specimens of eighteenth century architecture, including several old-fas.h.i.+oned post-houses, which used to furnish entertainment for travellers starting for the Middle West by way of the old c.u.mberland Road beginning at Fort c.u.mberland, and from Baltimore to Fort c.u.mberland by a much older turnpike. The more inviting portion of the modern city lies on the western side of Jones's Falls, and the princ.i.p.al residential districts are in the northern half of the city. A little S.
from the centre of the city, Baltimore Street, running E. and W., and Charles Street, running N. and S., intersect; from this point buildings on these two streets are numbered N., S., E. and W., while buildings on other streets are numbered N. and S. from Baltimore Street and E. and W. from Charles Street. Baltimore Street is the chief business thoroughfare; S. of it as well as a little to the N. is the wholesale, financial and s.h.i.+pping district; while West Lexington Street, a short distance to the N., and North Howard and North Eutaw Streets, between Fayette and Franklin Streets, have numerous department and other retail stores. In North Gay Street also, which runs N.E. through East Baltimore, there are many small but busy retail shops. North Charles Street, running through the district in which the more wealthy citizens live, is itself lined with many of the most substantial and imposing residences in the city. Mount Vernon Place and Was.h.i.+ngton Place, intersecting near the centre of the city, Eutaw Place farther N.W., and Broadway running N. and S. through the middle of East Baltimore, are good examples of wide streets, having squares in the middle, adorned with lawns, flower-beds and fountains.
The buildings of the princ.i.p.al business quarter have been erected since 1904, when a fire which broke out on Sunday the 7th of February destroyed all the old ones within an area of 150 acres. Within a year after the fire, however, 225 places of business were again occupied and 170 more were building. A city ordinance prohibited the erection of any building more than 185 ft. in height, and prescribed a uniform height for those in the same neighbourhood; a large portion of the new buildings are of either three or four storeys, but a few tall ones range from ten to sixteen. The princ.i.p.al materials of which they are built are limestone, granite, marble and bricks, and terra-cotta of various colours.
The city hall, the post-office and the court-house, standing in a row, and each occupying a separate block along E. Fayette Street in almost the exact centre of the city, are three of Baltimore's most imposing buildings, and all of them narrowly escaped destruction by the great fire. The city hall, completed in 1875, in the Renaissance style, consists of a centre structure of four storeys surmounted by an iron dome 260 ft. high, and two connecting wings of three storeys surmounted by a mansard roof; the entire outer facing is of white Maryland marble. The post-office, completed in 1890, is built of Maine granite. The court-house, completed in 1899, is of white marble, with mural paintings by La Farge, E. H. Blashfield and C. Y.
Turner. Two of the princ.i.p.al library buildings--the Peabody and the Enoch [v.03 p.0288] Pratt--are faced with white marble. Among the churches may be mentioned the Roman Catholic cathedral, surmounted by a dome 125 ft.
high--Baltimore being the seat of a Roman Catholic archbishopric, the highest in rank in the United States; the First Presbyterian church (decorated Gothic), with a spire 250 ft. high; the Grace Episcopal church--Baltimore being the seat of a Protestant Episcopal bishopric; the First Methodist Episcopal church; and the synagogues of the Baltimore Hebrew Congregation and the Oheb Shalom Congregation. Other notable buildings are the custom-house, the Masonic Temple, the Maryland Clubhouse, the Mount Royal station of the Baltimore & Ohio railway, and the buildings of the Johns Hopkins hospital. There are several good bridges across Jones's Falls.
On an elevated site at the intersection of Was.h.i.+ngton Place--a continuation of N. Charles Street--with Mount Vernon Place stands a white marble monument in honour of George Was.h.i.+ngton, the eldest of the monuments in his honour in the United States. The corner-stone was laid in 1815 and the monument was completed in 1829. The base is 50 ft. sq. and 24 ft. high; on this stands a Doric column, 25 ft. in diameter at the base and 130 ft.
high, which is surmounted by a statue of Was.h.i.+ngton 16 ft. high. A winding stairway in the interior leads to a parapet at the top. In the square by which the monument is surrounded are also statues of George Peabody by W. W. Story (a replica of the one in London), Roger Brooke Taney by W. H.
Rinehart, and John Eager Howard by Emmanuel Fremiet; and bronze pieces representing Peace, War, Force and Order, and a figure of a lion by Antoine L. Barye. The Henry Walters collection of paintings, mostly by modern French artists, and of Chinese and j.a.panese bronzes, ivory carvings, enamels, porcelain and paintings is housed in the Walters Art Gallery at the S. end of Was.h.i.+ngton Place; at the south-east corner of the square is the Peabody Inst.i.tute with its conservatory of music and collection of rare books, of American paintings, and of casts, including the Rinehart collection of the works of William H. Rinehart who was a native of Maryland. In Monument Square near the post-office and the court-house is the white marble Battle Monument, erected in 1815 to the memory of those who had fallen in defence of the city in the previous year; it is 52 ft.
high, the column being in the form of a bundle of Roman fasces, upon the bands of which are inscribed the names of those whom it commemorates; and the whole is surmounted by a female figure, the emblematical genius of the city. To this monument and the one in honour of Was.h.i.+ngton, Baltimore owes the name "The Monumental City," frequently applied to it. A small monument erected to the memory of Edgar Allan Poe stands in the Westminster Presbyterian churchyard, where he is buried; there is another monument to his memory in Druid Hill Park. In Greenmount Cemetery in the north central part of the city are the graves of Junius Brutus Booth, Mme Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte (1785-1879), the wife of Jerome Bonaparte, Johns Hopkins, John McDonogh and Sidney Lanier.
In 1908 there were in the city under the jurisdiction of the department of public parks and squares 13 parks of 10 acres or more each and 33 squares, and the total acreage of parks was 2188 acres and of squares 86.53 acres.
Chief among the parks is Druid Hill Park in the N.W. containing 672.78 acres and famous for its natural beauty. Clifton Park, of 311.26 acres, 2 m. E. of Druid Hill and formerly a part of the Johns Hopkins estate, pa.s.sed into the possession of the city in 1895. Patterson Park in the extreme S.E., of 125.79 acres, is a favourite resort for the inhabitants of East Baltimore.
_Education_.--Baltimore ranks high as an educational centre. Johns Hopkins University (_q.v._) is a leading inst.i.tution of the United States for graduate study. The Peabody Inst.i.tute, founded in 1859 by George Peabody, who was for some years a resident of Baltimore, is an important factor in the promotion of science, literature and the fine arts. Goucher College (Methodist, 1888) for women, is one of the best inst.i.tutions of the kind in southern United States. The older of the two state normal schools, opened in 1867, is located here. Morgan College (Methodist), opened in 1876, offers the advantages of a college education to the coloured young people.
Loyola College, founded in 1852, and various other inst.i.tutions are for the training of the Catholics.