(occasionally Greek) names of the elements as symbols for them, and adding a small numeral subscript, to show the number of atoms of each present in a compound, he introduced the present system of chemical formulation (see Chemistry). Mention should also be made of the numerous improvements he effected in analytical methods and the technique of the blowpipe (Über die Anwendung des Löthrohrs, 1820), of his classification of minerals on a chemical basis, and of many individual researches such as those on tellurium, selenium, silicon, thorium, titanium, zirconium and molybdenum, most of which he isolated for the first time. Apart from his original memoirs, of which he published over 250, mostly in Swedish in the Transactions of the Stockholm Academy, his remarkable literary activity is attested by his Lehrbuch der Chemie, which went through five editions (first 1803–1818, fifth 1843–1848) and by his Jahresbericht or annual report on the progress of physics and chemistry, prepared at the instance of the Stockholm Academy, of which he published 27 vols. (1821–1848).
BES, or Bēsas (Egyp. Bēs or Bēsa), the Egyptian god of recreation, represented as a dwarf with large head, goggle eyes, protruding tongue, shaggy beard, a bushy tail seen between his bow legs hanging down behind (sometimes clearly as part of a skin girdle) and usually a large crown of feathers on his head. A Bes-like mask was found by Petrie amongst remains of the twelfth dynasty, but the earliest occurrence of the god is in the temple of the queen Hatshepsut at Deir el Bahri (c. 1500 B.C.), where he is figured along with the hippopotamus goddess as present at the queen’s birth. His figure is that of a grotesque mountebank, intended to inspire joy or drive away pain and sorrow, his hideousness being perhaps supposed actually to scare away the evil spirits. In his joyous aspect Bes plays the harp or flute, dances, &c. He is figured on mirrors, ointment vases and other articles of the toilet. Amulets and ornaments in the form of the figure or mask of Bes are common after the New Kingdom; he is often associated with children and with childbirth and is figured in the “birth-houses” devoted to the cult of the child-god. Perhaps the earliest known instance of his prominent appearance of large size in the sculptures of the temples is under Tahraka, at Jebel Barkal, Nubia, at the beginning of the 7th century B.C. As the protector of children and others he is the enemy of noxious beasts, such as lions, crocodiles, serpents and scorpions. Large wooden figures of Bes are generally found to contain the remains of a human foetus. In the first centuries of our era an oracle of Besas was consulted at Abydos, where A. H. Sayce has found graffiti concerning him, and prescriptions exist for consulting Besas in dreams. It has been held that Bes was of non-Egyptian origin, African, as Wiedemann, or Arabian or even Babylonian, as W. Max Müller contends; he is sometimes entitled “coming from the Divine Land” (i.e. the East or Arabia), or “Lord of Puoni” (Punt), i.e. the African coast of the Red Sea; his effigy occurs also on Greek coins of Arabia. It is remarkable also that, contrary to the usual rule, he is commonly represented in Egyptian sculptures and paintings full faced instead of in profile. But the connexion of the god with Puoni may have grown out of the fact that dwarf dancers were especially brought to Egypt from Ethiopia and Puoni.
See K. Sethe in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopädie, s.v.; A. Wiedemann, Religion of the Ancient Egyptians (London, 1897), p. 159; E. A. W. Budge, Gods of the Egyptians, ii. p. 284 (London); W. Max Müller, Asien u. Europa (Leipzig, 1893), p. 310. (F. Ll. G.)
BESANÇON, a city of eastern France, capital of the department of Doubs, 76 m. E. of Dijon by the Paris-Lyon railway. Pop. (1906) town, 41,760; commune, 56,168. It is situated on the left bank of the river Doubs, 820 ft. above sea-level at the foot of the western Jura, and is enclosed by hills in every direction. The Doubs almost surrounds the city proper forming a peninsula, the neck of which is occupied by a height crowned by the citadel; on the right bank lie populous industrial suburbs. The river is bordered by fine quays, and in places by the shady promenades which are a feature of Besançon. On the right bank there is a fine bathing establishment in the Mouillère quarter, supplied by the saline springs of Miserey. The cathedral of St Jean, the chief of the numerous churches of the town, was founded in the 4th century but has often undergone reconstruction and restoration; it resembles the Rhenish churches of Germany in the possession of apses at each of its extremities. Several styles are represented in its architecture which for the most part is the work of the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries; the eastern apse and the tower date from the reign of Louis XV. In the interior there are a “Madonna and Child” of Fra Bartolommeo and a number of other paintings and works of art. The archiepiscopal palace adjoining the cathedral is a building of the 18th century. The church of Ste. Madeleine belongs to the 18th and 19th centuries. The Palais de Granvelle, in the heart of the town, was built from 1534 to 1540 by Nicolas Perrenot de Granvella, chancellor of Charles V., and is the most interesting of the secular buildings. It is built round a square interior court surrounded by arcades, and is occupied by learned societies. The hôtel de ville dates from the 16th century, to which period many of the old mansions of Besançon also belong. The law-court, rebuilt in recent times, preserves a Renaissance façade and a fine audience-hall of the 18th century. Some relics of old military architecture survive, among them a cylindrical tower of the 15th century near the Porte Notre-Dame, the southern gate of the city, and the Porte Rivotte, a gate of the 16th century, flanked by two round towers. The Roman remains at Besançon are of great archaeological value. Close to the cathedral there is a triumphal arch decorated with bas-reliefs known as the Porte Noire, which is generally considered to have been built in commemoration of the victories of Marcus Aurelius over the Germans in 167. It is in poor preservation and was partly rebuilt in 1820. Remains of a Roman theatre, of an amphitheatre, of an aqueduct which entered the town by the Porte Taillée, a gate cut in the rock below the citadel, and an arch of a former Roman bridge, forming part of the modern bridge, are also to be seen. Besançon has statues of Victor Hugo and of the Marquis de Jouffroy d’Abbans (b. 1751), inventor of steam-navigation.
Besançon is important as the seat of an archbishopric, a court of appeal and a court of assizes, as centre of an académie (educational division), as seat of a prefect and as headquarters of the VIIth army corps. It also has tribunals of first instance and of commerce, a chamber of commerce, a board of trade-arbitrators, an exchange and a branch of the Bank of France. Its educational establishments include the university with its faculties of science and letters and a preparatory school of medicine and pharmacy, an artillery school, the lycée Victor Hugo for boys, a lycée for girls, an ecclesiastical seminary, training colleges for teachers, and schools of watch-making, art, music and dairy-work. The library contains over 130,000 volumes, and the city has good collections of pictures, antiquities and natural history. The chief industry of Besançon is watch- and clock-making, introduced from the district of Neuchâtel at the end of the 18th century. It employs about 12,000 workpeople, and produces about three-fourths of the watches sold in France. Subsidiary industries, such as enamelling, are also important. The metallurgical works of the Société de la Franche-Comté are established in the city and there are saw-mills, printing-works, paper-factories, distilleries, and manufactories of boots and shoes, machinery, hosiery, leather, elastic fabric, confectionery and artificial silk. There is trade in agricultural produce, wine, metals, &c. The canal from the Rhône to the Rhine passes under the citadel by way of a tunnel, and the port of Besançon has considerable trade in coal, sand, &c.
As a fortress Besançon forms one of a group which includes Dijon, Langres and Belfort; these are designed to secure Franche Comté and to cover a field army operating on the left flank of a German army of invasion. The citadel occupies the neck of the peninsula upon which the town stands; along the river bank in a semicircle is the town enceinte, and the suburb of Battant on the right bank of the Doubs is also “regularly” fortified as a bridge-head. These works, and Forts Chaudanne and Brégille
