of bream—and other Cyprinids, most of them being imported alive from Holland and sold in the Jewish fish markets. In America the name bream is commonly given to the golden shiner minnow (Abramis chrysoleucus), to the pumpkin-seed sunfish (Eupomotis gibbosus), and to some kinds of porgy (Sparidae).
BREAST (a word common to Teutonic languages, of the Ger. Brust, possibly connected with an O. Sax. brustian, to bud), the term properly confined to the external projecting parts of the thorax in females, which contain the mammary glands (for anatomy, and diseases, see Mammary Gland); more generally it is used of the external part of the thorax in animals, including man, lying between the neck and the abdomen.
BREAUTÉ, FALKES DE (d. 1226), one of the foreign mercenaries of King John of England, from whom he received in marriage the heiress of the earldom of Devon. On the outbreak of the Barons’ War (1215) the king gave him the sheriffdoms of six midland shires and the custody of many castles. He fulfilled his military duties with as much skill as cruelty. The royalists owed to his daring the decisive victory of Lincoln (1217). But after the death of William Marshal, earl of Pembroke, Falkes joined the feudal opposition in conspiring against Hubert de Burgh. Deprived in 1223 of most of his honours, he was drawn into a rebellion by the imprudence of his brother, who captured a royal justice and threw him into prison (1224). Falkes was allowed to go into exile after his submission, and endeavoured to obtain a pardon through the mediation of Pope Honorius III. But this was refused, and Falkes died at St Cyriac in 1226.
See Shirley, Royal Letters, vol. i.; the Patent and Close Rolls; Pauli, Geschichte von England, vol. i. pp. 540-545. (H. W. C. D.)
BRECCIA, in petrology, the name given to rocks consisting of angular fragments embedded in a matrix. They may be composed of volcanic rocks, limestones, siliceous charts, sandstones, in fact of any kind of material, and the matrix, which usually corresponds to some extent to the fragments it encloses, may be siliceous, calcareous, argillaceous, &c. The distinctive character of the group is the sharp-edged and unworn shapes of the fragments; in conglomerates the pebbles are rounded and water-worn, having been transported by waves and currents from some distance. There are many ways in which breccias may originate. Some are formed by ordinary processes of atmospheric erosion; frost, rain and gravity break up exposed surfaces of rock and detach pieces of all sizes; in this way screes are formed at the bases of cliffs, and barren mountain-tops are covered with broken débris. If such accumulations gather and are changed into hard rock by pressure and other indurating agencies they make typical breccias. Conglomerates often pass into rocks of this type, the difference being merely that the fragments are of purely local origin, and are unworn because they have not been transported. In caves breccias of limestone are produced by the collapse of part of the roof, covering the floor with broken masses. Coral reefs often contain extensive areas of limestone breccia, formed of detached pieces of rock which have been dislodged from the surface and have been carried down the steep external slopes of the reef. Volcanic breccias are very common near active or extinct craters, as sudden outbursts of steam bear fragments from the older rocks and scatter them over the ground.
Another group of breccias is due to crushing; these are produced in fissures, faults and veins, below the surface, and maybe described as “crush-breccias” and “friction-breccias.” Very important and well-known examples of this class occur as veinstones, which may be metalliferous or not. A fissure is formed, probably by slight crustal movements, and is subsequently filled with material deposited from solution (quartz, calcite, barytes, &c.). Very often displacement of the walls again takes place, and the infilling or “veinstone” is torn apart and brecciated. It may then be cemented together by a further introduction of mineral matter, which may be the same as that first deposited or quite different. In important veins this process is often repeated several times: detached pieces of the country rock are mingled with the shattered veinstone, and generally experience alteration by the percolating mineral solutions. Other crush-breccias occurring on a much larger scale are due to the folding of strata which have unequal plasticities. If, for example, shales and sandstones are bent into a series of arches, the sandstones being harder and more resistant will tend to crack, while the shales, which are soft and flow under great pressures, are injected into the crevices and separate the broken pieces from one another. Continued movement will give the brecciated fragments of sandstone a rounded form by rubbing them against one another, and, in this way, a crush-conglomerate is produced. Great masses of limestone in the Alps, Scottish Highlands, and all regions of intense folding are thus converted into breccias. Cherts frequently also show this structure; igneous rocks less commonly do so; but it is perhaps most common where there have been thin bedded alternations of rocks of different character, such as limestone and dolerite, limestone and quartzite, shale or phyllite and sandstone. Fault-breccias closely resemble vein-breccias, except that usually their fragments consist principally of the rocks which adjoin the fault and not of mineral deposits introduced in solution; but many veins occupy faults, and hence no hard and fast line can be drawn between these types of breccia.
A third group of breccias is due to movement in a partly consolidated igneous rock, and may be called “fluxion-breccias.” Lava streams, especially when they consist of rhyolite, dacite and some kinds of andesite, may rapidly solidify, and then become exceedingly brittle. If any part of the mass is still liquid, it may break up the solid crust by pressure from within and the angular fragments are enveloped by the fluid lava. When the whole comes to rest and cools, it forms a typical “volcanic-fluxion-breccia.” The same phenomena are sometimes exemplified in intrusive sills and sheets. The fissures which are occupied by igneous dikes may be the seat of repeated injections following one another at longer or shorter intervals; and the latter may shatter the earlier dike rocks, catching up the fragments. Among the older formations, especially when decomposition has gone on extensively, these fluxion and injection-breccias are often very hard to distinguish from the commoner volcanic-breccias and ash-beds, which have been produced by weathering, or by the explosive power of superheated steam. (J. S. F.)
BRECHIN, a royal, municipal and police burgh of Forfarshire, Scotland. Pop. (1901) 8941. It lies on the left bank of the South Esk, 734 m. west of Montrose, and has a station on the loop line of the Caledonian railway from Forfar to Bridge of Dun. Brechin is a prosperous town, of great antiquity, having been the site of a Culdee abbey. The Danes are said to have burned the town in 1012. David I. erected it into a bishopric in 1150, and it is still a see of the Episcopal Church of Scotland. In 1452 the earl of Huntly crushed the insurrection led by the earl of Crawford at the battle of Brechin Muir, and in 1645 the town and castle were harried by the marquis of Montrose. James VI. gave a grant for founding a hospital in the burgh, which yet supplies the council with funds for charity. No trace remains of the old walls and gates of the town, but the river is crossed by a two-arched stone bridge of very early date. The cathedral church of the Holy Trinity belongs to the 13th century. It is in the Pointed style, but suffered maltreatment in 1806 at the hands of restorers, whose work, however, disappeared during the restoration completed in 1902. The western gable with its flamboyant window and Gothic door and the massive square tower are all that is left of the original edifice. The modern stained glass in the chancel is reckoned amongst the finest in Scotland. Immediately adjoining the cathedral to the south-west stands the Round Tower, built about 1000. It is 8634 ft. high, has at the base a circumference of 50 ft. and a diameter of 16 ft., and is capped with a hexagonal spire of 18 ft., which was added in the 15th century. This type of structure is somewhat common in Ireland, but the only Scottish examples are those at Brechin, Abernethy in Perthshire, and Egilshay in the Orkneys. Brechin Castle played a prominent part in the Scottish War of Independence. In 1303 it withstood for twenty days a siege in
