BATESVILLE, bnts'vil. A city and county-seat of Independence County, Ark., about 114 miles by rail northeast of Little Rock, the State capital, on the White River, and on a branch of the Saint Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern Railroad (Map: Arkansas, D 2). It is the seat of Arkansas College (Presbyterian), opened in 1872. The city has transportation facilities also by water, as the White River is navigable for a considerable portion of the year, and extensive improvements in a system of locks and dams, estimated to cost $1,600,000, are being made by the Federal Government to insure permanent navigation for a distance of about 100 miles above Batesville. It has inexhaustible quarries of sandstone, limestone, and marble: makes large shipments of building-stone, cotton, and lumber; and manufactures flour, lumber products, carriages, wagons, etc. Population, in 1890, 2150; in 1900, 2327.
BAT'FISH. (1) One of the small, pediculate
fishes of the family Malthidæ, related to the
angler or fishing-frog. The commonest American
species is Malthe (or Ogcocephalus) vespertilio,
which is grayish brown above, covered with
bony tubercles, and reddish below, and abounds
in the warmer regions of the Atlantic, where it
sits on the bottom, supported by its fins, much
in the attitude of a toad. Its remarkable ab-
normality arises from the excessively large and
broad head compared with the short, slender
trunk and the leg-like form of the pectoral fins.
It is regarded as venomous by the ignorant. It
has curious relatives in the deep sea. For illus-
tration, see plate of Anglers .Nn Batfish, (2)
One of the sting-rays of the Pacific Coast (Myliobatis Californicus). See Ray. (3) A flying-fish (q.v.). (4) A flying gurnard of the Atlantic (Cephalacanthus spinarella). See Gurnard.
BAT TICKS. See Forest Fly.
BATH bath.
By bathing is usually understood the immersion of the body, or a part of it, in water. In a more extended signification, it means the surrounding of the body with any medium differing in nature or temperature from its usual medium; thus we speak of a vapor-bath, a cold-air bath, an earth-bath. A four-fold division may be made of baths: (1) According to the substance with which the body is surrounded, whether liquid, gaseous, or mixed, water, oil, wine, milk, blood, gas, sand, mud, and other baths; (2) according to the manner of application — into river, plunge, shower, dropping, vapor, electric, and douche baths; (3) according to the parts of the body subjected to the application — into whole, half, sitz, foot, and eye baths: and (4) according to the temperature of the substance applied — into cold, tepid, warm, and hot baths.
The most ancient historical accounts as well as popular myths make mention of bathing. Among the Egyptians the bath was practiced as a religious rite: and in general we find the opinion prevailing, throughout antiquity, that purification of the body symbolized moral purity. In making the bath a religious ordinance. Moses may have had in view the prevention or more speedy cure of those skin diseases so prevalent in the East. The Mosaic law prescribes expressly, in some cases, the use of running water, which has given rise, through a misunderstanding, to the deleterious cellar baths of the Jews. In Palestine the wealthier Jews had private baths in their houses, and ponds in their gardens — an arrangement which prevailed in all the civilized parts of the East, and does so still. There were, besides, public bath-houses among the Jews, as among other nations.
Greece. Among the Greeks, also, bathing was very early in use. A bathroom containing a clay tub was found in the prehistoric palace at Tiryns, and in Homer the warm bath is frequently used for refreshment, and is part of the entertainment offered an honored guest. Bath-tubs, for which water was heated, were used, and the washing was followed by an anointing with oil. Bathing among the Greeks was a religious rite, and was connected with the preparations for sacrifice, for the reception of oracles, for marriage, etc. It was at Athens that the luxury of warm baths was especially developed, after the Fifth Century B.C. There were public baths where a slight fee was required; baths run by private enterprise, at higher rates; baths in the wealthy private houses; and others connected with the gymnasia. The Athenians knew the vapor, hot, plunge, and douche baths preceding the cold baths. Allusions in the ancient writers, as well as the vase-paintings, show that the bathers frequently stood beside a large basin on a high stand. We also find men and women bathing under douches, the water pouring from spouts in the wall. There were swimming-baths for each sex, but there is no reason to believe that the later Roman custom of promiscuous bathing ever prevailed in Greece, The baths never reached such splendor of construction or such importance in the daily life of the Greeks as they did in that of the Romans.
Rome. Among the Romans the public baths were long the only ones in use, and consisted of but two halls, one for each sex. Every town and even village had one bath or more. In Rome itself there were over 800 in the Fourth Century A.D. This number does not include the magnificent imperial thermæ, which were much more than baths; nor the private baths, without which no house of any pretensions was complete. Orata, about a century before Augustus, was the first to make a bathroom over a hypocaust, or basement filled with hot air — a discovery which was developed into a system of hot-air pipes throughout the thickness of all the walls, giving an even, hot temperature. Probably the increase of comfort due to this invention was the cause of the growth in both the number and the popularity of baths toward the close of the Republic. Mæcenas was the first to have a swimming-tank of hot water, and the other friend of Augustus, Agrippa, was the first to build immense thermæ on an elaborate and systematic plan, with all the luxuries of Græco-Oriental tradition improved by Roman practical inventiveness. The type of the Augustan Age can be studied in the descriptive text of the Roman architect Vitruvius. The later imperial thermæ became the centre of the public leisurely life of Rome, including as it did libraries, lecture-rooms, gardens, porticoes, gymnasia, running-tracks, and every variety of incentive to luxurious ease. The principal imperial establishments of this kind were those of Titus, Trajan, Caracalla, and Diocletian. They covered enormous spaces in the heart of the city.
