trial shots with different charges and depths of hole, and noting the
results; also by letting contracts under which the workmen pay for
the explosive. In surface rock excavation the location and determination
of the depth of the holes and the quantity of explosive
used, are occasionally put in charge of one or more skilled men,
who direct the work and are responsible for the results obtained.
Blasting in surface excavations and quarries is sometimes done on an immense scale—called “mammoth blasting.” Shafts are sunk, or tunnels driven, in the mass of rock to be blasted, and, connected with them, a number of chambers are excavated to receive the charges of explosive. The preparation for such blasts may occupy months, and many tons of gunpowder or dynamite are at times exploded simultaneously, breaking or dislodging thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, of tons of rock. This method is adopted for getting stone cheaply, as for building macadamized roads, dams and breakwaters, obtaining limestone for blast furnace flux, and occasionally in excavating large railway cuttings. It is also applied in submarine blasting for the removal of reefs obstructing navigation, and sometimes for loosening extensive banks of partly cemented gold-bearing gravel, preparatory to washing by hydraulic mining.
Authorities.—For further information on drilling and blasting see:—Callon, Lectures on Mining (1876), vol. i. chs. v. and vi.; Foster, Text-book of Ore and Stone Mining, (1900), ch. iv.; Hughes, Text-book of Coal Mining (1901), ch. iii.; H. S. Drinker, Tunnelling, Explosive Compounds and Rock Drills (1878); M. C. Ihlseng, Manual of Mining (1905), pp. 596-696; Köhler, Der Bergbaukunde (1897), pp. 104-208; Daw, The Blasting of Rock (1898); Prelini, Earth and Rock Excavation (1905), chs. v., vi. and vii.; Gillette, The Excavation of Rock (1904); Guttmann, Blasting (1892); Spon’s Dictionary of Engineering, art. “Boring and Blasting”; Eissler, Modern High Explosives (1893), pts. ii. and iii.; Walke, Lectures on Explosives (1897), chs. xix.-xxii. Also: Proc. Inst. Civ. Eng. (London), vol. lxxxv. p. 264; Trans. Inst. Min. Eng. (England), vols. xiv., xv. and xvi. (arts, by W. Maurice), vol. xxvi. pp. 322, 348, vol. xxiv. p. 526 and vol. xxv. p. 108; Trans. Amer. Soc. Civ. Eng., vol. xxvii. p. 530; Trans. Amer. Inst. Min. Eng., vol. xviii. p. 370, vol. xxix p. 405 and vol. xxxiv. p. 871; South Wales Inst. Eng. (1888); Jour. Ass. Eng. Socs., vol. vii. p. 58; Jour. Chem. Met. and Mining Soc. of South Africa, August 1905; School of Mines Quarterly, N.Y., vol. ix. p. 308; Colliery Guardian, April 15, 1898, and February 6, 1903; Mines and Minerals, February 1905, p. 348, January 1906, p. 259, and April 1906, p. 393; Eng. and Mining Jour., April 19, 1902, p. 552; The Engineer, February 24, 1905; Elec. Rev., June 9, 1899; Eng. News, vol. xxxii. p. 249, and August 3, 1905; Glückauf, September 28, 1901, and July 5, 1902; Österr. Zeitschr. f. Berg- u. Hüttenwesen, May 18, 25, 1901, April 18, 1903 and November, 18, 1905; Annales des mines, vol. xviii. pp. 217-248. (R. P.*)
BLAUBEUREN, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of
Württemberg, 12 m. W. of Ulm, with which it is connected by
railway. Pop. (1900) 3114. It is romantically situated in a wild
and deep valley of the Swabian Alps at an altitude of 1600 ft. and
is partly surrounded by ancient walls. Of the three churches
(two Evangelical and one Roman Catholic) the most remarkable
is the abbey church (Klosterkirche), a late Gothic building dating
from 1465–1496, the choir of which contains beautiful 15th
century carved choir-stalls and a fine high altar with a triptych
(1496). The choir only is used for service (Protestant), the nave
being used as a gymnasium. The town church (Stadtkirche) also
has a fine altar with triptych. The Benedictine abbey, founded
in 1095, was used after the Reformation as a school, and is now
an Evangelical theological seminary. There are two hospitals
in the town.
BLAVATSKY, HELENA PETROVNA (1831–1891), Russian theosophist, was born at Ekaterinoslav, on the 31st of July (O.S.) 1831, the daughter of Colonel Peter Hahn, a member of a Mecklenburg family, settled in Russia. She married in her seventeenth year a man very much her senior, Nicephore Blavatsky, a Russian official in Caucasia, from whom she was separated after a few months; in later days, when seeking to invest herself with a halo of virginity, she described the marriage as a nominal one. During the next twenty years Mme Blavatsky appears to have travelled widely in Canada, Texas, Mexico and India, with two attempts on Tibet. In one of these she seems to have crossed the frontier alone in disguise, been lost in the desert, and, after many adventures, been conducted back by a party of horsemen. The years from 1848 to 1858 were alluded to subsequently as “the veiled period” of her life, and she spoke vaguely of a seven years’ sojourn in “Little and Great Tibet,” or preferably of a “Himalayan retreat.” In 1858 she revisited Russia, where she created
a sensation as a spiritualistic medium. About 1870 she acquired
prominence among the spiritualists of the United States, where
she lived for six years, becoming a naturalized citizen. Her
leisure was occupied with the study of occult and kabbalistic
literature, to which she soon added that of the sacred writings of
India, through the medium of translations. In 1875 she conceived
the plan of combining the spiritualistic “control” with the
Buddhistic legends about Tibetan sages. Henceforth she
determined to exclude all control save that of two Tibetan adepts
or “mahatmas.” The mahatmas exhibited their “astral
bodies” to her, “precipitated” messages which reached her
from the confines of Tibet in an instant of time, supplied her with
sound doctrine, and incited her to perform tricks for the conversion
of sceptics. At New York, on the 17th of November
1875, with the aid of Colonel Henry S. Olcott, she founded the
“Theosophical Society” with the object of (1) forming a universal
brotherhood of man, (2) studying and making known the ancient
religions, philosophies and sciences, (3) investigating the laws of
nature and developing the divine powers latent in man. The
Brahmanic and Buddhistic literature supplied the society with
its terminology, and its doctrines were a curious amalgam of
Egyptian, kabbalistic, occultist, Indian and modern spiritualistic
ideas and formulas. Mme Blavatsky’s principal books were
Isis Unveiled (New York, 1877), The Secret Doctrine, the Synthesis
of Science, Religion and Philosophy (1888), The Key to Theosophy
(1891). The two first of these are a mosaic of unacknowledged
quotations from such books as K. R. H. Mackenzie’s Royal
Masonic Encyclopaedia, C. W. King’s Gnostics, Zeller’s Plato, the
works on magic by Dunlop, E. Salverte, Joseph Ennemoser, and
Des Mousseaux, and the mystical writings of Eliphas Levi (L. A.
Constant). A Glossary of Theosophical Terms (1890–1892) was
compiled for the benefit of her disciples. But the appearance of
Home’s Lights and Shadows of Spiritualism (1877) had a prejudicial
effect upon the propaganda, and Heliona P. Blavatsky
(as she began to style herself) retired to India. Thence she contributed
some clever papers, “From the Caves and Jungles of
Hindostan” (published separately in English, London, 1892) to
the Russky Vyestnik. Defeated in her object of obtaining employment
in the Russian secret service, she resumed her efforts
to gain converts to theosophy. For this purpose the exhibition
of “physical phenomena” was found necessary. Her jugglery
was cleverly conceived, but on three occasions was exposed
in the most conclusive manner. Nevertheless, her cleverness,
volubility, energy and will-power enabled her to maintain her
ground, and when she died on the 8th of May 1891 (White
Lotus Day), at the theosophical headquarters in the Avenue
Road, London, she was the acknowledged head of a community
numbering not far short of 100,000, with journalistic organs in
London, Paris, New York and Madras.
Much information respecting her will be found in V. S. Solovyov’s Modern Priestess of Isis, translated by Walter Leaf (1895), in Arthur Lillie’s Madame Blavatsky and Her Theosophy (1895), and in the report made to the Society for Psychical Research by the Cambridge graduate despatched to investigate her doings in India. See also the article Theosophy.
BLAYDES, FREDERICK HENRY MARVELL (1818–1908),
English classical scholar, was born at Hampton Court Green, on
the 29th of September 1818, being a collateral descendant of
Andrew Marvell, the satirist and friend of Milton. He was
educated at St Peter’s school, York, and Christ Church, Oxford.
He was Hertford scholar in 1838, took a second class in literae
humaniores in 1840, and was subsequently elected to a studentship
at Christ Church. In 1842 he took orders, and from 1843
to 1886 was vicar of Harringworth in Northamptonshire. During
a long life he devoted himself almost entirely to the study of the
Greek dramatists. His editions and philological papers are
remarkable for bold conjectural emendations of corrupt (and
other) passages. His distinction was recognized by his being
made an honorary LL.D. of Dublin, Ph.D. of the university of
Buda Pest and a fellow of the royal society of letters at Athens.
He died at Southsea on the 7th of September 1908.
His works include:—Aristophanes: Comedies and Fragments, with critical notes and commentary (1880–1893); Clouds, Knights, Frogs, Wasps (1873–1878); Opera Omnia, with critical notes (1886);
