e was so cut till he began to move, when
he fell in pieces.

BALNAVES, HENRY, coadjutor of John Knox in the Scottish Reformation,
and a fellow-sufferer with him in imprisonment and exile; afterwards
contributed towards formulating the creed of the Scotch Church; born at
Kirkcaldy, and educated in Germany; _d_. 1579.

BALSALL, a thriving suburb of Birmingham, engaged in hardware
manufacture.

BALTIC PROVINCES, Russian provinces bordering on the Baltic.

BALTIC SEA, an inland sea in the N. of Europe, 900 m. long and from
100 to 200 m. broad, about the size of England and Wales; comparatively
shallow; has no tides; waters fresher than those of the ocean, owing to
the number of rivers that flow into it and the slight evaporation that
goes on at the latitude; the navigation of it is practically closed from
the middle of December to April, owing to the inlets being blocked with
ice.

BALTIMORE (550), the metropolis of Maryland, on an arm of Chesapeake
Bay, 250 m. from the Atlantic; is picturesquely situated; not quite so
regular in design as most American cities, but noted for its fine
architecture and its public monuments. It is the seat of the John Hopkins
University. The industries are varied and extensive, including textiles,
flour, tobacco, iron, and steel. The staple trade is in bread-stuffs; the
exports, grain, flour, and tobacco.

BALUE, CARDINAL, minister of Louis XI.; imprisoned, for having
conspired with Charles the Rash, by Louis in an iron cage for eleven
years (1421-1491).

BALUCHISTAN, a country lying to the S. of Afghanistan and extending
to the Persian Gulf. See Beluchistan.

BALZAC, HONORE DE, native of Tours, in France; one of the most
brilliant as well as prolific novelwriters of modern times; his
productions remarkable for their sense of reality; they show power of
observation, warmth and fertility of imagination, and subtle and profound
delineation of human passion, his design in producing them being to make
them form part of one great work, the "Comedie Humaine," the whole being
a minute dissection of the different classes of society (1799-1850).

BALZAC, JEAN LOUIS GUEZ DE, born at Angouleme, a French litterateur
and gentleman of rank, who devoted his life to the refinement of the
French language, and contributed by his "Letters" to the classic form it
assumed under Louis XIV.; "he deliberately wrote," says Prof. Saintsbury,
"for the sake of writing, and not because he had