BORKU, or Borgu, a region of Central Africa between 17° and 19° N. and 18° and 21° E., forming part of the transitional zone between the arid wastes of the Sahara and the fertile lands of the central Sudan. It is bounded N. by the Tibesti Mountains, and is in great measure occupied by lesser elevations belonging to the same system. These hills to the south and east merge into the plains of Wadai and Darfur. South-west, in the direction of Lake Chad, is the Bodele basin. The drainage of the country is to the lake, but the numerous khors with which its surface is scored are mostly dry or contain water for brief periods only. A considerable part of the soil is light sand drifted about by the wind. The irrigated and fertile portions consist mainly of a number of valleys separated from each other by low and irregular limestone rocks. They furnish excellent dates. Barley is also cultivated. The northern valleys are inhabited by a settled population of Tibbu stock, known as the Daza, and by colonies of negroes; the others are mainly visited by nomadic Berber and Arab tribes. The inhabitants own large numbers of goats and asses.
A caravan route from Barca and the Kufra oasis passes through Borku to Lake Chad. The country long remained unknown to Europeans. Gustav Nachtigal spent some time in it in the year 1871, and gave a valuable account of the region and its inhabitants in his book, Sahara und Sudan (Berlin, 1879–1889). In 1899 Borku, by agreement with Great Britain, was assigned to the French sphere of influence. The country, which had formerly been periodically raided by the Walad Sliman Arabs, was then governed by the Senussi (q.v.), who had placed garrisons in the chief centres of population. From it raids were made on French territory. In 1907 a French column from Kanem entered Borku, but after capturing Ain Galakka, the principal Senussi station, retired. Borku is also called Borgu, but must not be confounded with the Borgu (q.v.) west of the Niger.
A summary of Nachtigal’s writing on Borku will be found in section 28 of Gustav Nachtigal’s Reisen in der Sahara und im Sudan (1 vol.), arranged by Albert Fränkel (Leipzig, 1887). See also an article (with map) by Commdt. Bordeaux in La Géographie, Oct. 1908.
BORKUM, an island of Germany, in the North Sea, belonging
to the Prussian province of Hanover, the westernmost of the
East Frisian chain, lying between the east and west arms of the
estuary of the Ems, and opposite to the Dollart. Pop. about
2500. The island is 5 m. long and 212 m. broad, is a favourite
summer resort, and is visited annually by about 20,000 persons.
There is a daily steamboat service with Emden, Leer and Hamburg
during the summer months. The island affords pasture for
cattle, and a breeding-place for sea-birds.
BORLASE, WILLIAM (1695–1772), English antiquary and
naturalist, was born at Pendeen in Cornwall, of an ancient
family, on the 2nd of February 1695. He was educated at
Exeter College, Oxford, and in 1719 was ordained. In 1722 he
was presented to the rectory of Ludgvan, and in 1732 he obtained
in addition the vicarage of St Just, his native parish. In the
parish of Ludgvan were rich copper works, abounding with
mineral and metallic fossils, of which he made a collection, and
thus was led to study somewhat minutely the natural history of
the county. In 1750 he was admitted a fellow of the Royal
Society; and in 1754 he published, at Oxford, his Antiquities of
Cornwall (2nd ed., London, 1769). His next publication was
Observations on the Ancient and Present State of the Islands of
Scilly, and their Importance to the Trade of Great Britain (Oxford,
1756). In 1758 appeared his Natural History of Cornwall. He
presented to the Ashmolean museum, Oxford, a variety of fossils
and antiquities, which he had described in his works, and
received the thanks of the university and the degree of LL.D.
He died on the 31st of August 1772. Borlase was well acquainted
with most of the leading literary men of the time, particularly
with Alexander Pope, with whom he kept up a long correspondence,
and for whose grotto at Twickenham he furnished the
greater part of the fossils and minerals.
Borlase’s letters to Pope, St Aubyn and others, with answers, fill several volumes of MS. There are also MS. notes on Cornwall, and a complete unpublished treatise Concerning the Creation and Deluge. Some account of these MSS., with extracts from them, was given in the Quarterly Review, October 1875. Borlase’s memoirs of his own life were published in Nichol’s Literary Anecdotes, vol. v.
BORMIO (Ger. Worms), a town of Lombardy, Italy, in the
province of Sondrio, 4112 m. N.E. of the town of Sondrio. Pop.
(1901) 1814. It is situated in the Valtellina (the valley of the
Adda), 4020 ft. above sea-level, at the foot of the Stelvio pass,
and, owing to its position, was of some military importance in
the middle ages. It contains interesting churches and picturesque
towers. A cemetery of pre-Roman date was discovered at Bormio in 1820.
The baths of Bormio, 2 m. farther up the valley, are mentioned by Pliny and Cassiodorus, the secretary of Theodoric, and are much frequented.
BORN, IGNAZ, Edler von (1742–1791), Austrian mineralogist
and metallurgist, was born of a noble family at Karlsburg,
in Transylvania, on the 26th of December 1742. Educated
in a Jesuit college in Vienna, he was for sixteen months a
member of the order, but left it and studied law at Prague.
Then he travelled extensively in Germany, Holland and France,
studying mineralogy, and on his return to Prague in 1770 entered
the department of mines and the mint. In 1776 he was appointed
by Maria Theresa to arrange the imperial museum at Vienna,
where he was nominated to the council of mines and the mint,
and continued to reside until his death on the 24th of July 1791.
He introduced a method of extracting metals by amalgamation
(Über das Anquicken der Erze, 1786), and other improvements in
mining and other technical processes. His publications also include
Lithophylacium Bornianum (1772–1775) and Bergbaukunde
(1789), besides several museum catalogues. Von Born
attempted satire with no great success. Die Staatsperücke, a
tale published without his knowledge in 1772, and an attack on
Father Hell, the Jesuit, and king’s astronomer at Vienna, are two
of his satirical works. Part of a satire, entitled Monachologia,
in which the monks are described in the technical language of
natural history, is also ascribed to him. Von Born was well
acquainted with Latin and the principal modern languages of
Europe, and with many branches of science not immediately
connected with metallurgy and mineralogy. He took an active
part in the political changes in Hungary. After the death of
the emperor Joseph II., the diet of the states of Hungary
rescinded many innovations of that ruler, and conferred the rights
of denizen on several persons who had been favourable to the
cause of the Hungarians, and, amongst others, on von Born. At the
time of his death in 1791, he was employed in writing a work
entitled Fasti Leopoldini, probably relating to the prudent
conduct of Leopold II., the successor of Joseph, towards the Hungarians.
BORNA, a town of Germany in the kingdom of Saxony, on the
Wyhra at its junction with the Pleisse, 17 m. S. by E. of Leipzig
by rail. Pop. (1905) 9176. The industries include peat-cutting,
iron foundries, organ, pianoforte, felt and shoe factories.
BÖRNE, KARL LUDWIG (1786–1837), German political writer and
satirist, was born on the 6th of May 1786 at Frankfort-on-Main,
where his father, Jakob Baruch, carried on the business
of a banker. He received his early education at Giessen, but
as Jews were ineligible at that time for public appointments in
Frankfort, young Baruch was sent to study medicine at Berlin
under a physician, Markus Herz, in whose house he resided.
Young Baruch became deeply enamoured of his patron’s wife,
the talented and beautiful Henriette Herz (1764–1847), and gave
vent to his adoration in a series of remarkable letters. Tiring of
medical science, which he had subsequently pursued at Halle,
he studied constitutional law and political science at Heidelberg
and Giessen, and in 1811 took his doctor’s degree at the latter
university. On his return to Frankfort, now constituted as a
grand duchy under the sovereignty of the prince bishop Karl von
Dalberg, he received (1811) the appointment of police actuary in
that city. The old conditions, however, returned in 1814 and
he was obliged to resign his office. Embittered by the oppression
under which the Jews suffered in Germany, he engaged in journalism,
and edited the Frankfort liberal newspapers, Staatsristretto
and Die Zeitschwingen. In 1818 he became a convert to Lutheran
