BERAR` (896), one of the central provinces of India, E. of Bombay; it occupies a fertile, well-watered valley, and yields large quantities of grain, and especially cotton.

BERAT, FREDERIC, a French poet and composer, author of a great number of popular songs (1800-1853).

BERBER, native language spoken in the mountainous parts of Barbary.

BERBER (8), a town in Nubia, on the Nile, occupied by the English; starting-point of caravans for the Red Sea; railway was begun to Suakim, but abandoned.

BER`BERAH, the seaport of Somaliland, under Britain, with an annual fair that brings together at times as many as 30,000 people.

BERBERS (3,000), a race aboriginal to Barbary and N. Africa, of a proud and unruly temper; though different from the Arab race, are of the same religion.

BERBICE, the eastern division of British Guiana; produces sugar, cocoa, and timber.

BERBRUGGER, a French archaeologist and philologist; wrote on Algiers, its history and monuments (1801-1869).

BERCHTA, a German Hulda, but of severer type.  See BERTHA.

BERCY, a commune on the right bank of the Seine, outside Paris, included in it since 1860; is the great mart for wines and brandies.

BERE`ANS, a sect formed by John Barclay in 1778, who regard the Bible as the one exclusive revelation of God.

BERENGER, or BERENGA`RIUS, OF TOURS, a distinguished theologian, born at Tours; held an ecclesiastical office there, and was made afterwards archdeacon of Angers; ventured to deny the doctrine of transubstantiation, a denial for which he was condemned by successive councils of the Church, and which he was compelled more than once publicly to retract, though he so often and openly recalled his retractation that the pope, notwithstanding the opposition of the orthodox, deemed it prudent at length to let him alone.  After this he ceased to trouble the Church, and retired to an island on the Loire, where he gave himself up to quiet meditation and prayer (998-1088).

BERENGER I., king of Italy, grandson of Louis the Debonnaire, an able general; provoked the jealousy of the nobles, who dreaded the abridgment of their rights, which led to his assassination at their hands in 934.  B. II., king of Italy, grandson of the preceding, was dethroned twice by the Emperor Otho, who sent him a prisoner to Bamberg, where he died, 966.

BERENGER, THOMAS, a French criminalist and magistrate (1785-1866).

BERENI`CE, a Jewish widow, daughter of Herod Agrippa, with whom Titus was fascinated, and whom he would have taken to wife, had not the Roman populace protested, from their Anti-Jewish prejudice, against it.  The name was a common one among Egyptian as well as Jewish princesses.

BERESFORD, WILLIAM CARR, VISCOUNT, an English general, natural son of the first Marquis of Waterford; distinguished himself in many a military enterprise, and particularly in the Peninsular war, for which he was made a peer; he was a member of the Wellington administration, and master-general of the ordnance (1770-1854).