ly
indebted to his munificence. He took a keen interest in all questions
affecting the welfare of the working classes, and was largely instrumental
in securing the abolition of imprisonment for debt. On his death, prior to
which he had taken into partnership Messrs Ratcliff and Gretton, two of the
leading officials of the brewery, converting the business into a limited
company known as Messrs Bass, Ratcliff & Gretton, Ltd., the control of the
firm passed to his sons, Michael Arthur Bass and Hamar Bass (d. 1898).
Michael Arthur Bass (1837-1909), after twenty-one years in parliament as
member first for Stafford, then for two divisions of Staffordshire, was in
1886 raised to the peerage as Baron Burton; by a special patent of 1897 the
peerage descended to his daughter, Nellie, the wife of Mr J. E. Baillie of
Dochfour, the baronetcy descending to his nephew W. A. Hamar Bass (b.
1879).

BASS (the same word as "base," and so pronounced, but influenced in
spelling by the Ital. _basso_), deep, low; especially in music, the lower
part in the harmony of a composition, the lowest male voice, or the
lowest-pitched of a class of instruments, as the bass-clarinet.

Bass or bast (a word of doubtful origin, pronounced _b[)a]s_) is the
fibrous bark of the lime tree, used in gardening for tying up plants, or to
make mats, soft plaited baskets, &c. Basswood is the American lime-tree,
Tilia Americana; white basswood is T. heterophylla.

The name bass is also given to a fish closely resembling the perch.

BASSA, a province of the British protectorate of Northern Nigeria,
occupying the angle made by the meeting of the Benue river with the Niger.
It has an area of 7000 sq. m., with a population estimated at about one and
a half millions. It is bounded N. by the Benue, W. by the Niger, S. by the
frontier of Southern Nigeria, and E. by the province of Muri. The province
is heavily forested, and is estimated to be one of the richest of the
protectorate in natural products. It has never been penetrated by Moslem
influence, and is inhabited in the greater part by warlike and unruly
pagans. Early in the 16th century the Igbira (Okpoto or Ibo) were one of
the most powerful pagan peoples of Nigeria and had their capital at Iddah.
At a later period the Bassas conquered the western portion of the state and
the Munshis the eastern, while the Okpoto still held the south and a
wedge-shaped district partially dividing the Munshis and Bassas. The Bassas