BERESI`NA, a Russian river, affluent of the Dnieper, into which it falls after a course of 350 m.; it is serviceable as a water conveyance for large rafts of timber to the open sea, and is memorable for the disastrous passage of the French in their retreat from Moscow in 1812.

BEREZOV`, a town in Siberia, in the government of Tobolsk; a place of banishment.

BERG, DUCHY OF, on right bank of the Rhine, between Duesseldorf and Cologne, now part of Prussia; Murat was grand-duke of it by Napoleon’s appointment.

BER`GAMO (42), a Lombard town, in a province of the same name, and 34 m.  NE. of Milan, with a large annual fair in August, the largest in Italy; has grindstone quarries in the neighbourhood.

BERGASSE, French jurisconsult, born at Lyons; celebrated for his quarrel with Beaumarchais; author of an “Essay on Property” (1750-1832).

BERGEN (52), the old capital of Norway, on a fjord of the name, open to the Gulf Stream, and never frozen; the town, consisting of wooden houses, is built on a slope on which the streets reach down to the sea, and has a picturesque appearance; the trade, which is considerable, is in fish and fish products; manufactures gloves, porcelain, leather, etc.; the seat of a bishop, and has a cathedral.

BERGEN-OP-ZOOM (11), a town in N. Brabant, once a strong place, and much coveted and frequently contested for by reason of its commanding situation; has a large trade in anchovies.

BER`GENROTH, GUSTAV ADOLPH, historian, born in Prussia; held a State office, but was dismissed and exiled because of his sympathy with the revolutionary movement of 1848; came to England to collect materials for a history of the Tudors; examined in Simancas, in Spain, under great privations, papers on the period in the public archives; made of these a collection and published it in 1862-68, under the title of “Calendar of Letters, Despatches, &c., relating to Negotiations between England and Spain” (1813-1869).

BERGERAC (11), a manufacturing town in France, 60 m.  E. of Bordeaux, celebrated for its wines; it was a Huguenot centre, and suffered greatly in consequence.

BERGERAC, SAVINIEN CYRANO DE, an eccentric man with comic power, a Gascon by birth; wrote a tragedy and a comedy; his best work a fiction entitled “Histoire Comique des Etats et Empires de la Lune et du Soleil”; fought no end of duels in vindication, it is said, of his preposterously large nose (1619-1655).

BERGHAUS, HEINRICH, a geographer of note, born at Cleves; served in both the French and Prussian armies as an engineer, and was professor of mathematics at Berlin; his “Physical Atlas” is well known (1797-1884).

BERGHEM, a celebrated landscape-painter of the Dutch school, born at Haarlem (1624-1683).

BERGMAN, TORBERN OLOF, a Swedish chemist, studied under Linnaeus, and became professor of Chemistry at Upsala; discovered oxalic acid; was the first to arrange and classify minerals on a chemical basis (1735-1784).