nada, rising in Sussex lake, a small body of water in
108deg 20' W. and 64deg 25' N., and flowing with a very tortuous course
N.E. to an inlet of the Arctic Ocean, passing through several large
lake-expansions--Pelly, Carry, MacDougall and Franklin. Like the
Coppermine, the only other large river of this part of Canada, it is
rendered unnavigable by a succession of rapids and rocks. It was discovered
and explored by Sir George Back in 1834. Its total length is 560 m.

BACKWARDATION, or, as it is more often called for brevity, BACK, a
technical term employed on the London Stock Exchange to express the amount
charged for the loan of stock from one account to the other, and paid to
the purchaser by the seller on a bear account (see ACCOUNT) in order to
allow the seller to defer the delivery of the stock. The seller, having
sold for delivery on a certain date, stocks or shares which probably he
does not possess, in the hope that he may be able, before the day fixed for
delivery, to buy them at a cheaper price and so earn a profit, finds on
settling-day that the prices have not gone down according to his
expectation, and therefore pays the purchaser an agreed amount of interest
(_backwardation_) for the privilege of deferring the delivery, either in
order to procure the stock, or else in the hope that there will be a
shrinkage in the price which will enable him to gain a profit. (See also
STOCK EXCHANGE).

BACON, FRANCIS (BARON VERULAM, VISCOUNT ST ALBANS) (1561-1626), English
philosopher, statesman and essayist, was born at York House in the Strand,
London, on the 22nd of January 1560/1. He was the youngest son of Sir
Nicholas Bacon (_q.v._). His mother, the second wife of Sir Nicholas, was a
daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke, formerly tutor to Edward VI. She was a woman
of considerable culture, well skilled in the classical studies of the
period, and a warm adherent of the Reformed or Puritan Church. Very little
is known of Bacon's early life and education. His health being then, as
always, extremely delicate, he probably received much of his instruction at
home. In April 1573 he was entered at Trinity College, Cambridge, where for
three years he resided with his brother Anthony. At Cambridge he applied
himself diligently to the several sciences as then taught, and came to the
conclusion that the methods employed and the results attained were alike
erroneous. Although he preserved a reverence for Aristotle (of whom,
however, h