BEAUSOBRE, Isaac de, a learned Protestant writer, of French origin, was born at Niort in 1659, and after studying theology at the Protestant Academy of Saumur, was ordained at the age of twenty-two. He was forced into Holland to avoid the execution of a sentence con demning him to make the amends honorable for having broken the royal signet, which was put upon the door of a church of the reformers to prevent the public profession of their religion. He went to Berlin in 1G94, and was made chaplain to the king of Prussia, and counsellor of the royal consistory. He died in 1738, aged seventy-nine, after having published several works, among which may be mentioned (1.) Defense de la Doctrine des Reformes, sur la Providence, sur la Predestination, sur la Grace, et sur VEucharistie (Magdeburg, 1694-8); (2.) A translation of the New Testament, with Notes, jointly with M. Lenfant (1718), much esteemed among Protestants; (3.) Disserta tion sur les Adamites de BoMme, a curious work ; (4.) Histoire Critique de Manicheo et du Manicheisme, 2 torn. 4to (Amst., 1734-9), a very learned and valuable work, discussing, as Gibbon observes, " many deep questions of Pagan and Christian theology, and forming a rich treasury of facts and opinions ; " (5.) Several dissertations in the Bibliotheque Britannique. Beausobre had strong sense with profound erudition, and was one of the best writers of his time, and he preached as he wrote, with spirit and ability.
BEAUVAIS, a town of France, capital of an arrondisse- ment in the department of Oise, situated in 49 26 N. lat. and 2 14 E. long., about 45 miles N. of Paris, in a valley at the junction of the Avelon and the Therain. The town is irregularly built, but possesses several edifices of historical and architectural interest. Chief among these is the cathedral of Saint Pierre, begun in 1225, continued at intervals till the 16th century by various ambitious projectors, and still incomplete. Its stained glass windows are both ancient and beautiful, though they are rivalled by those of Saint Etienne, another of the older churches in the town. Contiguous to the cathedral is a basilica of the 6th century, one of the oldest buildings of the kind in France. The episcopal palace, now used as a court-house, was built in the 16th century. Among the secular buildings are the town-house, dating from 1754, the college, which was formerly an Ursuline convent, a library with up wards of 15,000 volumes, a natural history museum, a theatre, a hospital, and barracks. The industry of Beauvais comprises, besides the weaving of tapestry, which dates from 1664, the manufacture of velvet and various kinds of cotton and woollen goods, leather, and earthen ware. An extensive trade is carried on in grain and wine, and the products of the industrial establishments. Beauvais was known to the Romans as Ccesaromagus, and took its present name from the Gallic tribe of the Bellovad, whose capital it was. In the 9th century it was erected into a countship, which about 1013 passed to the bishops of Beauvais, who ultimately became peers of France. In 1346 the town had to defend itself against the English, who again besieged it in 1433. The siege which it suffered in 1472 at the hands of the duke of Burgundy was rendered famous by the heroism of the women, under the leadership of Jeanne Hachette, whose memory is still cele brated by a procession on the 14th of October (the feast of Ste Angadreme), in which the women take precedence of the men. Population in 1871, 15,542.
BEAVER, the English name of a genus of Mammals belonging to the order Rodentia, the two known species of which are among the largest members of that group. Both beavers, European and American, measure about 2 feet in length, exclusive of the tail, which is about 10 inches lung, and are covered with the fur to which they owe their chief commercial value. This consists of two kinds of hair, the one close-set, silky, and of a greyish colour ; the other much coarser and longer, and of a reddish brown. Beavers are essentially aquatic in their habits, never travelling by land unless driven to it by necessity. Their hind feet are webbed to the nails, and in swimming those only are used, the front legs remaining motionless by the side. They differ from all other rodents in possessing a broad horizon tally flattened tail, somewhat oval in form and covered with scales, which they use as an aid to their progress through the water, and not as a trowel for plastering their mud houses as was formerly supposed. The front incisor teeth in each jaw have a sharp chisel-like edge, and are so formed as to preserve this through life. They consist of an outer layer of orange-coloured enamel, and a broad inner layer of a softer substance. As the creature gnaws, the softer material is worn away more rapidly than the enamel, which thus protrudes in a sharp ridge. There is a continuous growth at the roots of those teeth to repair the constant waste that goes on at the cutting edge, so that should one of the incisors be destroyed, the opposite tooth, meeting with no check to its enlargement, will grow to an enormous length ; and beavers have been found in which this abnormal growth had proved fatal by preventing the other teeth from coming together. The enamel is exceed ingly hard ; and, until superseded by English files, those teeth, fixed in wooden handles, were used by the North American Indians in carving their weapons of bone. The question whether the American and European beavers are the same or different species, has given rise to some con troversy ; but it is now generally conceded, chiefly on anatomical grounds, that they are distinct, although in outward appearance they are almost identical.
The European Beaver (Castor filer} was at one time an in habitant of the British Isles, having been found, according to Pennant, in certain Welsh rivers as late as the 12th century, while fossil remains of it occur in various parts of the country. In Scandinavia beavers are now extinct, the last known specimen having been killed in 1844. Isolated pairs are still occasionally met with on the banks of the Rhone, the Weser, and the Elbe; and a considerable number are to be found in one of the parks belonging to the emperor of Austria, on the banks of the Danube, where they are strictly preserved. They also occur, though sparingly, in Russia and Poland, in the streams of the Ural Mountains, and in those which flow into the Caspian Sea. They are said to live in burrows on the banks of rivers, like the common water rat, and to show little of the archi tectural instinct so conspicuous in the American species; this, however, is probably more owing to unfavourable external conditions than to want of the faculty, for there is at least one well-authenticated instance of a colony of beavers, on a small stream near Magdeburg, whose habi tations and dam were exactly similar to those found in America.
that part of the American continent included between the Arctic circle and the tropic of Cancer ; owing, how ever, to the gradual spread of population over part of this area, and still more to the enormous quantity of skins that, towards the end of last century and the beginning ef the present, were exported to Europe, numbering about 200,000 annually, this species was in imminent danger of extirpation. More recently the employment of silk and of the fur of the South American Coypu in the manufacture of hats, so lessened the demand for beaver skins that the trapping of these animals became unprofitable ; and being thus little sought after for many years, they have again become abundant in such of their old haunts as have not
yet been occupied by man. so that the trade in beaver