BIZERTA (10), a seaport of Tunis, northernmost town in Africa, 38 m.  NW. of the capital, with an excellent harbour.

BIZET, GEORGES, an operatic composer, born at Paris; his greatest work “Carmen”; died of heart-disease shortly after its appearance (1838-1875).

BJOeRNSEN, a Norwegian author, born at Kvikne; composed tales, dramas, and lyrics, all of distinguished merit and imbued with a patriotic spirit; his best play “Sigurd the Bastard”; an active and zealous promoter of liberalism, sometimes extreme, both in religion and politics; his writings are numerous, and they rank high; his songs being highly appreciated by his countrymen; b. 1832.

BLACK, JOSEPH, a celebrated chemist, born at Bordeaux, of Scotch parents; the discoverer of what has been called latent heat, but what is really transformed energy; professor of Chemistry, first in Glasgow, then in Edinburgh, where his lectures were very popular; his discoveries in chemistry were fruitful in results (1728-1799).

BLACK, WILLIAM, novelist, born in Glasgow; started life as a journalist in connection with the Morning Star; has written several novels, over 30 in number, about the West Highlands of Scotland, rich in picturesque description; the best known and most admired, “A Daughter of Heth,” the “Madcap Violet,” “Macleod of Dare,” “The Strange Adventures of a Phaeton,” and “A Princess of Thule.”  “But when are you going to write a book, Mr. Black?” said Carlyle to him one day (1841-1898).

BLACK ART, name given to the presumed power of evoking evil spirits.

BLACK ASSIZE, a plague at Oxford in 1557, which carried off 300 victims; caught at the assize from the prisoners under trial.

BLACK DEATH, a name given to a succession of fatal epidemics that devastated the world from China to Ireland in the 14th century, believed to be the same as the Oriental plague, though attended with peculiar symptoms; the most serious was that of 1348, which, as is reckoned, stripped England alone of one-third of its inhabitants.

BLACK FOREST (488), a wooded mountain chain 4000 ft. high (so called from the black pines that cover it), which runs parallel with the Rhine, and E. of it, through Wuertemberg and Baden, from the Swiss frontier to Carlsruhe; is remarkable for its picturesque scenery and its mineral wealth; it possesses many health resorts, as Baden-Baden and Wildbad, where are mineral springs; silver, copper, cobalt, lead, and iron are wrought in many places; the women and children of the region make articles of woodwork, such as wooden clocks, &c.

BLACK FRIARS, monks of the Dominican order; name of a district in London where they had a monastery.

BLACK HOLE OF CALCUTTA, a confined apartment 13 ft. square, into which 146 English prisoners were crammed by the orders of Surajah Dowia on the 19th June 1756; their sufferings were excruciating, and only 23 survived till morning.