the Barry company and has a junction with the Great Western railway at Bridgend) affords a direct route to Barry from the Llynvi, Ogmore and Garw coalfields. The urban district of Barry, with a population in 1901 of 27,030, comprises the ecclesiastical parishes of Barry, Cadoxton, Merthyr-Dovan, and a portion of Sully in which is included Barry Island (194 acres), now, however, joined to the mainland. The total population of this area in 1881 was only about 500, that of Barry village alone being only 85. A small brook named Barri runs here into the sea, whence the place was formerly known in Welsh as Aber-Barri, but the name of both the river and the island is supposed to be derived from Baruch, a Welsh saint of the 7th century, who had a cell on the island. His chapel (which still existed in Leland’s time) was a place of pilgrimage in the middle ages. According to Giraldus, his own family derived its name de Barri from the island which they once owned. One of the followers of Fitzhamon settled at Barry about the end of the 11th century, building there a castle of which only a gateway remains. Besides the small old parish churches of Merthyr-Dovan and Cadoxton, and the rebuilt parish church of Barry, there are four modern churches (in one of which Welsh services are held). There are about thirty nonconformist chapels, in nearly a third of which the services are Welsh. There are also a Roman Catholic church, and one for German and Scandinavian seamen. The other public buildings are a county intermediate school for 250 boys and girls, built in 1896, a free library (opened in 1892) with four branch reading-rooms, a seamen’s institute, the Barry market, built in 1890 at a cost of £3500 (but now used as a concert-hall), and Romilly hall for public meetings.
Barry owes its seaport to the determination of a number of colliery owners to secure an alternative port to Cardiff, with an independent railway to it from the coalfields. After failing in 1883, they obtained parliamentary powers for this purpose in 1884, and the first sod of the new dock at Barry was cut in November of that year. The docks are 114 acres in extent, and have accommodation for the largest vessels afloat. Dock No. 1, opened on the 18th of July 1889, is 73 acres (with a basin of 7 acres) and occupies the eastern side of the old channel between the island and the mainland, having a well-sheltered deep-sea entrance. There is good anchorage between Barry and Sully islands. Dock No. 2 (34 acres) was opened on the 10th of October 1898. There are 41 acres of timber-ponds and three large graving-docks. For loading the coal there are thirty fixed and seven movable coal-hoists. The total tonnage of the exports in 1906 was 9,757,380 (all of which, except 26,491 tons, was coal), and of the imports 506,103 tons.
BAR-ṢALĪBĪ, JACOB or DIONYSIUS,[1] the best-known and most voluminous writer in the Syrian Jacobite church of the 12th century, was, like Bar-Hebraeus, a native of Malatia on the Upper Euphrates. In 1154 he was created bishop of Marʽash by the patriarch Athanasius VIII.; a year later the diocese of Mabbōg was added to his charge. In 1166 Michael I., the successor of Athanasius, transferred him to the metropolitan see of Āmid in Mesopotamia, and there he remained till his death in 1171. A long account of his writings, with copious extracts from some of them, has been given by Assemani (Bibl. Orient. ii. pp. 156-211); and W. Wright (Syriac Literature, pp. 246-250) has added further particulars as to the MSS. in which they are contained. Probably the most important are his exhaustive commentaries on the text of the Old and New Testaments, in which he has skilfully interwoven and summarized the interpretations of previous writers such as Ephrem, Chrysostom, Cyril, Moses Bar-Kēphā and John of Dārā, whom he mentions together in the preface to his commentary on St Matthew. Among his other main works are a treatise against heretics, containing inter alia a polemic against the Jews and the Mahommedans; liturgical treatises, epistles and homilies. His commentaries on the Gospels were to some extent used by Dudley Loftus in the 17th century. But the systematic editing of his works was only begun in 1903 with H. Labourt’s edition and translation of his Exposition of the Liturgy (Paris). His commentaries on the Gospels have been edited and translated by J. Sedlaček and J. B. Chabot (Fasc. I., Paris, 1906), and the Syriac text of the treatise against the Jews has been edited by J. de Zwaan (Leiden, 1906). Bar-Ṣalībī was undoubtedly an able theologian; his vigour combined with terseness in argument is well seen, for instance, in the introductory sections of his commentary on St Matthew. Of his originality it is hard to judge, as he does not usually indicate in detail the sources of his arguments and interpretations. He does not, however, claim for himself to be more than a compiler, at least in his commentaries. His Syriac style is good, considering the lateness of the period at which he wrote.
(N. M.)
BARSI, a town of British India, in the Sholapur district of Bombay, lying within a tract entirely surrounded by the Nizam’s dominions. Pop. (1901) 24,242. Barsi is a flourishing centre of trade, exporting to Bombay large quantities of cotton and oil-seeds. It has several factories for ginning and pressing cotton—some on a large scale. It is connected with the main line of the Great Indian Peninsula railway by a light railway.
BAR-SUR-AUBE, a town of north-eastern France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Aube, 34 m. E. by S. of Troyes on the main line of the Eastern railway between that town and Belfort. Pop. (1906) 4276. Bar-sur-Aube lies at the foot of hills on the right bank of the Aube at its confluence with the Bresse. A circle of boulevards occupies the site of the old ramparts, fragments of which still remain. Of the ecclesiastical buildings, the most noteworthy are St Pierre and St Maclou, both dating mainly from the end of the 12th century. St Pierre has wooden exterior galleries and two fine Gothic porches. The sacristy of St Maclou is conjectured to have formed the chapel of the castle of the counts of Bar, of which the square tower flanking the north side of the church formed the entrance. The town is the seat of a sub-prefect, and the public institutions include a tribunal of first instance and a communal college. Flour-milling, tanning, and the manufacture of brandy, hosiery and agricultural implements are carried on. The wine of the district is much esteemed.
Traces of a Roman settlement have been found on hills to the south of the town. Under the domination of the counts of Champagne, it became the scene of important fairs which did not cease till 1648. In 1814 several actions between the French and the army of the allies took place at Bar-sur-Aube (see Napoleonic Wars).
BAR-SUR-SEINE, a town of eastern France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Aube, on the left bank of the Seine, 20 m. S.E. of Troyes by the Eastern railway. Pop. (1906) 2812. The town lies at the foot of a wooded hill on which stand the ruins of the castle of the counts of Bar, and is composed chiefly of one long street, bordered in places by houses of the 16th century. Its principal building is the church of St Etienne, of the 16th and 17th centuries, which contains some fine stained glass. Bar-sur-Seine has a sub-prefecture and a tribunal of first instance. Tanning, dyeing, flour-milling, brandy-distilling and the manufacture of glass are among the industries. The Canal de la Haute-Seine begins at this point. The town was devastated in 1359 by the English, when, according to Froissart, no fewer than 900 mansions were burnt. Afterwards it suffered greatly in the religious wars of the 16th century.
BART, JEAN (1651–1702), French naval commander, son of a fisherman, was born in Dunkirk on the 21st of October 1651. He served when young in the Dutch navy, but when war broke out between Louis XIV. and Holland in 1672 he entered the French service. He gained great distinction in the Mediterranean, where he held an irregular sort of commission, not being then able from his low birth to receive a command in the navy. His success was so great, however, that he was made a lieutenant in 1679. He rose rapidly to the rank of captain and then to that of admiral. The peace of Ryswick put a close to his active service. Many anecdotes are narrated of the courage and bluntness of the uncultivated sailor, who became the popular hero
- ↑ Jacob was his baptismal name; Dionysius he assumed when consecrated to the bishopric.
