of water of 23 to 30 ft.
Bougie is the natural port of Kabylia, and under the French rule its
commerce--chiefly in oils, wools, hides and minerals--has greatly
developed; a branch railway runs to Beni Mansur on the main line from
Constantine to Oran. Pop. (1906) of the town, 10,419; of the commune,
17,540; of the arrondissement, which includes eight communes, 37,711.

Bougie, if it be correctly identified with the Saldae of the Romans, is
a town of great antiquity, and probably owes its origin to the
Carthaginians. Early in the 5th century Genseric the Vandal surrounded
it with walls and for some time made it his capital. En-Nasr
(1062-1088), the most powerful of the Berber dynasty of Hammad, made
Bougie the seat of his government, and it became the greatest commercial
centre of the North African coast, attaining a high degree of
civilization. From an old MS. it appears that as early as 1068 the
heliograph was in common use, special towers, with mirrors properly
arranged, being built for the purpose of signalling. The Italian
merchants of the 12th and 13th centuries owned numerous buildings in the
city, such as warehouses, baths and churches. At the end of the 13th
century Bougie passed under the dominion of the Hafsides, and in the
15th century it became one of the strongholds of the Barbary pirates. It
enjoyed partial independence under amirs of Hafside origin, but in
January 1510 was captured by the Spaniards under Pedro Navarro. The
Spaniards strongly fortified the place and held it against two attacks
by the corsairs Barbarossa. In 1555, however, Bougie was taken by Salah
Rais, the pasha of Algiers. Leo Africanus, in his _Africae descriptio_,
speaks of the "magnificence" of the temples, palaces and other buildings
of the city in his day (c. 1525), but it appears to have fallen into
decay not long afterwards. When the French took the town from the
Algerians in 1833 it consisted of little more than a few fortifications
and ruins. It is said that the French word for a candle is derived from
the name of the town, candles being first made of wax imported from
Bougie.

BOUGUER, PIERRE (1698-1758), French mathematician, was born on the 16th
of February 1698. His father, John Bouguer, one of the best
hydrographers of his time, was regius professor of hydrography at
Croisic in lower Brittany, and author of a treatise on navigation. In
1713 he was appointed to succeed his father as professor of hydrography.
In 1727