BONTUKU. 285 BOOK. dust, salt, and cotton goods. The houses have flat roofs, and are inclosed by high chiy walls interspersed with buttresses. The architecturo suggests a higher state of civilization than is found in the surrounding country. The popula- tion is estimated at from 7000 to 8000. and is chiefly immigrant. BOIfTJS ( Lat. bonus, good). A special allow- ance beyond what is formally due. It is applied (a) to a special dividend. If the previous divi- dend has been 4 per cent, on the capital, and it the profits of the current year admit of 5 per cent., a formal dividend of that amount might commit the company to a like dividend in future; and to prevent such a precedent, 4 per cent, is declared, and a bonus of I per cent. It is also used (b) to designate the inducement offered to security-holders to part with their securities in exchange for others. Thus, in industrial combi- nations, it is not infrequent that stockholders of the older corporations receive, in addition to the nominal value of their holdings in the new se- curities, a bonus, either in cash or in securities of the new organization. The term also desig- nates (e) the payment to the Government for the privileges which the act of incorporation confers upon a company. BONVALOT, boN'va'lfi', Pierre Gabriel (lS.5o — ). A French traveler and e.plorer. He was born at Epagne (Aube), studied at the lyceum of Troves, in 1880 accompanied Ujfalvy on a journey of exploration to the interior of Asia, and in 1880-87, accompanied by G. Capus and the painter Pepin, undertook a second jour- ney thither. In 1889-90, with Prince Henri d'Or- leans (q.v.), he traversed Asia from Siberia to Tongking. He was sent in 1897 on a Government mission to Antoto. Abyssinia. His principal works include: De Moscou en Bactriane (1884) ; Du Caucase atix Indes a trovers le Pamir (1888) ; De Paris an Tonkin (1892) ; and L'Asie inconnue (1896). BONVTN, boN'v.'iN-'. Francois Saint- (1817- 87). A French painter, born at Vaugirard. He was self-instructed, and painted chiefly genre pic- tures on motives derived from the workaday phases of humble life. His drawing is true and his color harmonious. He also executed several cflfective etchings. His pictures include the fol- lowing: "Charity" (1852); "Regimental School" (1853); "The Gossip" (18.59); "Grandmothers Coflee" (1866); "Pious Persons Distributing Alms" (1867); "Morning in the Pasture" (1870) : "The Pig" (1875) ; and "Corner in a Church" (1880). BONY PIKE. A gar-pike (Lepidosteus). See Gar. BONZE, bon'z^-. A word corrupted from the .lapanese bodzu. which in southwestern .lapan is nasalized and softened. Correctly applied in general to members of the Buddhist fraternities, by natives, it is used also by foreigners for the priests and monks in other countries of Asia. The Chinese characters fu-tti, in the Sixth Cen- tury, spelled Buddh, but crossing the water the spoken word became 'bonze.' The term is gen- eral, referring to the Buddhist religiois members of the community, rather than to the rank or priestly character of one who professes the Bud- dhist religion, the special term for priest being ofho or so. Popularly, it has especial reference to the shaven head, the old term being also applied to former retainers of the daimios. BOOBY. Any of various of the lesser and more tropical species of gannets (genus Sula). The name is said by Newton (Dirtionarij of Birds, London, 1896. p. 48) to be a corruption of the Portuguese bobo, a fool, derived from the Latin balbiis, stuttering or inarticulate; and to have been "applied, most likely by our [British] seamen, originally, to certain birds from their stupidity in alighting upon ships and allowing themselves to be taken easily by the hand," in- stances of which have been mentioned in many accounts of early voyages. There is no reason to suppose that these birds are any more stupid than other sea-fowl little accustomed to man. All boobies differ from gannets in having the whole lower jaw, chin, and throat naked. Several species are known, one confined to the Peruvian coast, and the others ranging throughout the warmer seas of the whole world, and coming north on American shores to Georgia and Lower California. Their habits are those of the gannet (q.v.). with the important exception that they make their nests, as a rule, on bushes and trees instead of on rocks. The site is always near the seashore. It is a rude platform of sticks and dry seaweed, and contains one or two eggs, "chalk- white superficially, but beneath the calcareous crust pale greenish-blue." The commonest and typical species is Sula sula, which is dark sooty- brown (often tawny), with the naked skin of the face and throat yellowish and the feet dull-green. The blue-faced booby {Sula ci/anops) is white, with wings and tail sooty-brown, the naked skin about the face and throat bluish, and the feet reddish. The red-footed booby {Sula piscator) is yellowish-white, with the wing-quills slate- colored and the feet red, BOOBY, Lady. The suggestive name of a character in Joseph Andrews, a novel by Field- ing. Attempting the virtue of the title' charac- ter, her footman, and failing, she turns him out. BOOBY ISLAND, A level rock in Torres Strait, in latitude 10° 36' S. and longitude 141° 53' E,. 3 feet in height, and one-fourth of a mile in diameter. As it is highly dangerous to naviga- tors, and destitute of natural resources, it is regularly supplied with ])r()visions and water by passing vessels, for the benefit of such as may be cast ashore on it. BOOG, buog. See Bug. { BOOK. The aim of the first scribes in the choice of the material for their work was to give durable form to the production. .ccordingly, the earliest inscriptions which have been pre- served were placed on stone or baked brick or metal, rather than a more flexible but more per- ishable material. The Ten Commandments, for instance, were giaven on slabs of stone. .Tosc- phus records that the columns on which the chil- dren of Seth placed the records of their inventions were of stone and brick. The Laws of Solon (about 594 B.C.) were inscribed on wooden planks. The earliest productions answering to our modern hooks of which we have any record were the tiles covered with inscriptions in the soft clay by the Chaldean scribes, and rendered permanent by being baked in ovens. The excava- tions carried on in Lower Mesopotamia (1895- 1901) by Dr. .John P. Peters and others have
