s Bonaparte,
king of Holland, who was very fond of the spot, formed a zoological
collection here which was removed to Amsterdam in 1809. In 1816 the estate
was presented by the nation to the prince of Orange (afterwards King
William II.) in recognition of his services at the battle of Quatre Bras.
Since then the palace and grounds have been considerably enlarged and
beautified. Close to Baarn in the south-west were formerly situated the
ancient castles of Drakenburg and Drakenstein, and at Vuursche there is a
remarkable dolmen.

BABADAG, or BABATAG, a town in the department of Tulcea, Rumania; situated
on a small lake formed by the river Taitza among the densely wooded
highlands of the northern Dobrudja. Pop. (1900) about 3500. The Taitza lake
is divided only by a strip of marshland from Lake Razim, a broad landlocked
sheet of water which opens on the Black Sea. Babadag is a market for the
wool and mutton of the Dobrudja. It was founded by Bayezid I., sultan of
the Turks from 1389 to 1403. It occasionally served as the winter
headquarters of the Turks in their wars with Russia, and was bombarded by
the Russians in 1854.

BABBAGE, CHARLES (1792-1871), English mathematician and mechanician, was
born on the 26th of December 1792 at Teignmouth in Devonshire. He was
educated at a private school, and afterwards entered St Peter's College,
Cambridge, where he graduated in 1814. Though he did not compete in the
mathematical tripos, he acquired a great reputation at the university. In
the years 1815-1817 he contributed three papers on the "Calculus of
Functions" to the _Philosophical Transactions_, and in 1816 was made a
fellow of the Royal Society. Along with Sir John Herschel and George
Peacock he laboured to raise the standard of mathematical instruction in
England, and especially endeavoured to supersede the Newtonian by the
Leibnitzian notation in the infinitesimal calculus. Babbage's attention
seems to have been very early drawn to the number and importance of the
errors introduced into astronomical and other calculations through
inaccuracies in the computation of tables. He contributed to the Royal
Society some notices on the relation between notation and mechanism; and in
1822, in a letter to Sir H. Davy on the application of machinery to the
calculation and printing of mathematical tables, he discussed the
principles of a calculating engine, to the construction of which he devoted
many years of his life. Government was