BABBAGE, CHARLES (1792-1871), English mathematician and mechanician, was born on the 26th of December 1792 at Teignmouth in Devonshire. He was educated at a private school, and afterwards entered St Peter's College, Cambridge, where he graduated in 1814. Though he did not compete in the mathematical tripos, he acquired a great reputation at the university. In the years 1815-1817 he contributed three papers on the "Calculus of Functions" to the Philosophical Transactions, and in 1816 was made a fellow of the Royal Society. Along with Sir John Herschel and George Peacock he laboured to raise the standard of mathematical instruction in England, and especially endeavoured to supersede the Newtonian by the Leibnitzian notation in the infinitesimal calculus. Babbage's attention seems to have been very early drawn to the number and importance of the errors introduced into astronomical and other calculations through inaccuracies in the computation of tables. He contributed to the Royal Society some notices on the relation between notation and mechanism; and in 1822, in a letter to Sir H. Davy on the application of machinery to the calculation and printing of mathematical tables, he discussed the principles of a calculating engine, to the construction of which he devoted many years of his life. Government was induced to grant its aid, and the inventor himself spent a portion of his private fortune in the prosecution of his undertaking. He travelled through several of the countries of Europe, examining different systems of machinery; and some of the results of his investigations were published in the admirable little work, Economy of Machines and Manufactures (1834). The great calculating engine was never completed; the constructor apparently desired to adopt a new principle when the first specimen was nearly complete, to make it not a difference but an analytical engine, and the government declined to accept the further risk (see Calculating Machines). From 1828 to 1839 Babbage was Lucasian professor of mathematics at Cambridge. He contributed largely to several scientific periodicals, and was instrumental in founding the Astronomical (1820) and Statistical (1834) Societies. He only once endeavoured to enter public life, when, in 1832, he stood unsuccessfully for the borough of Finsbury. During the later years of his life he resided in London, devoting himself to the construction of machines capable of performing arithmetical and even algebraical calculations. He died at London on the 18th of October 1871. He gives a few biographical details in his Passages from the Life of a Philosopher (1864), a work which throws considerable light upon his somewhat peculiar character. His works, pamphlets and papers were very numerous; in the Passages he enumerates eighty separate writings. Of these the most important, besides the few already mentioned, are Tables of Logarithms (1826); Comparative View of the Various Institutions for the Assurance of Lives (1826); Decline of Science in England (1830); Ninth Bridgewater Treatise (1837); The Exposition of 1851 (1851).
See Monthly Notices, Royal Astronomical Society, vol. 32.
BABEL, the native name of the city called Babylon (q.v.) by the Greeks, the modern Hillah. It means "gate of the god," not "gate of the gods," corresponding to the Assyrian Bāb-ili. According to Gen. xi 1-9 (J), mankind, after the deluge, travelled from the mountain of the East, where the ark had rested, and settled in Shinar. Here they attempted to build a city and a tower whose top might reach unto heaven, but were miraculously prevented by their language being confounded. In this way the diversity of human speech and the dispersion of mankind were accounted for; and in Gen. xi. 9 (J) an etymology was found for the name of Babylon in the Hebrew verb bālal, "to confuse or confound," Babel being regarded as a contraction of Balbel. In Gen. x. 10 it is said to have formed part of the kingdom of Nimrod.
The origin of the story has not been found in Babylonia. The tower was no doubt suggested by one of the temple towers of Babylon. W. A. Bennet (Genesis, p. 169; cf. Hommel in Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible) suggests E-Saggila, the great temple of Merodach (Marduk). The variety of languages and the dispersion of mankind were regarded as a curse, and it is probable that, as Prof. Cheyne (Encyclopaedia Biblica, col. 411) says, there was an ancient North Semitic myth to explain it. The event was afterwards localized in Babylon. The myth, as it appears in Genesis, is quite polytheistic and anthropomorphic. According to Cornelius Alexander (frag. 10) and Abydenus (frags. 5 and 6) the tower was overthrown by the winds; according to Yaqut (i. 448 f.) and the Lisan el-‛Arab (xiii. 72) mankind were swept together by winds into the plain afterwards called "Babil," and were scattered again in the same way (see further D. B. Macdonald in the Jewish Encyclopaedia). A tradition similar to that of the tower of Babel is found in Central America. Xelhua, one of the seven giants rescued from the deluge, built the great pyramid of Cholula in order to storm heaven. The gods, however, destroyed it with fire and confounded the language of the builders. Traces of a somewhat similar story have also been met with among the Mongolian Tharus in northern India (Report of the Census of Bengal, 1872, p. 160), and, according to Dr Livingstone, among the Africans of Lake Ngami. The Esthonian myth of "the Cooking of Languages" (Kohl, Reisen in die Ostseeprovinzen, ii. 251-255) may also be compared, as well as the Australian legend of the origin of the diversity of speech (Gerstäcker, Reisen, vol. iv. pp. 381 seq.).
BAB-EL-MANDEB (Arab, for "The Gate of Tears"), the strait between Arabia and Africa which connects the Red Sea (q.v.) with the Indian Ocean. It derives its name from the dangers attending its navigation, or, according to an Arabic legend, from the numbers who were drowned by the earthquake which separated Asia and Africa. The distance across is about 20 m. from Ras Menheli on the Arabian coast to Ras Siyan on the African. The island of Perim (q.v.), a British possession, divides the strait into two channels, of which the eastern, known as the Bab Iskender (Alexander's Strait), is 2 m. wide and 16 fathoms deep, while the western, or Dact-el-Mayun, has a width of about 16 m. and a depth of 170 fathoms. Near the African coast lies a group of smaller islands known as the "Seven Brothers." There is a surface current inwards in the eastern channel, but a strong under-current outwards in the western channel.
BABENBERG, the name of a Franconian family which held the duchy of Austria before the rise of the house of Habsburg. Its earliest known ancestor was one Poppo, who early in the 9th century was count in Grapfeld. One of his sons, Henry, called margrave and duke in Franconia, fell fighting against the Normans in 886; another, Poppo, was margrave in Thuringia from 880 to 892, when he was deposed by the German king Arnulf. The family had been favoured by the emperor Charles the Fat, but Arnulf reversed this policy in favour of the rival family of the Conradines. The leaders of the Babenbergs were the three sons of Duke Henry, who called themselves after their castle of Babenberg on the upper Main, round which their possessions centred. The rivalry between the two families was intensified by their efforts to extend their authority in the region of the middle Main, and this quarrel, known as the "Babenberg feud," came to a head at the beginning of the 10th century during the
troubled reign of the German king, Louis the Child. Two of the Babenberg brothers were killed, and the survivor Adalbert was summoned before the imperial court by the regent Hatto I., archbishop of Mainz, a partisan of the Conradines. He refused to appear, held his own for a time in his castle at Theres against the king's forces, but surrendered in 906, and in spite of a promise of safe-conduct was beheaded. From this time the Babenbergs lost their influence in Franconia; but in 976 Leopold, a member of the family who was a count in the Donnegau, is described as margrave of the East Mark, a district not more than 60 m. in breadth on the eastern frontier of Bavaria which grew into the duchy of Austria. Leopold, who probably received the mark as a reward for his fidelity to the emperor Otto II. during the Bavarian rising in 976, extended its area at the expense of the Hungarians, and was succeeded in 994 by his son Henry I. Henry, who continued his father's policy, was followed in 1018 by his brother Adalbert and in 1055 by his nephew Ernest, whose marked loyalty to the emperors Henry III. and Henry IV. was rewarded by many tokens of favour. The succeeding margrave, Leopold II., quarrelled with Henry IV., who was unable to oust him from the mark or to prevent the succession of his son Leopold III. in 1096. Leopold supported Henry, son of Henry IV., in his rising against his father, but was soon drawn over to the emperor's side, and in 1106 married his daughter Agnes, widow of Frederick I., duke of Swabia. He declined the imperial crown in 1125. His zeal in founding monasteries earned for him his surname "the Pious," and canonization by Pope Innocent VIII. in 1485. He is regarded as the patron saint of Austria. One of Leopold's sons was Otto, bishop of Freising (q.v.). His eldest son, Leopold IV., became margrave in 1136, and in 1139 received from the German king Conrad III. the duchy of Bavaria, which had been forfeited by Duke Henry the Proud. Leopold's brother Henry (surnamed Jasomirgott from his favourite oath, "So help me God!") was made count palatine of the Rhine in 1140, and became margrave of Austria on Leopold's death in 1141. Having married Gertrude, the widow of Henry the Proud, he was invested in 1143 with the duchy of Bavaria, and resigned his office as count palatine. In 1147 he went on crusade, and after his return renounced Bavaria at the instance of the new king Frederick I. As compensation for this, Austria, the capital of which had been transferred to Vienna in 1146, was erected into a duchy. The second duke was Henry's son Leopold I., who succeeded him in 1177 and took part in the crusades of 1182 and 1190. In Palestine he quarrelled with Richard I., king of England, captured him on his homeward journey and handed him over to the emperor Henry VI. Leopold increased the territories of the Babenbergs by acquiring Styria in 1192 under the will of his kinsman Duke Ottakar IV. He died in 1194, and Austria fell to one son, Frederick, and Styria to another, Leopold; but on Frederick's death in 1198 they were again united by Duke Leopold II., surnamed "the Glorious." The new duke fought against the infidel in Spain, Egypt and Palestine, but is more celebrated as a lawgiver, a patron of letters and a founder of towns. Under him Vienna became the centre of culture in Germany and the great school of Minnesingers (q.v.). His later years were spent in strife with his son Frederick, and he died in 1230 at San Germano, whither he had gone to arrange the peace between the emperor Frederick II. and Pope Gregory IX. His son Frederick II. followed as duke, and earned the name of "Quarrelsome" by constant struggles with the kings of Hungary and Bohemia and with the emperor. He deprived his mother and sisters of their possessions, was hated by his subjects on account of his oppressions, and in 1236 was placed under the imperial ban and driven from Austria. Restored when the emperor was excommunicated, he treated in vain with Frederick for the erection of Austria into a kingdom. He was killed in battle in 1246, when the male line of the Babenbergs became extinct. The city of Bamberg grew up around the ancestral castle of the family.
See G. Juritsch, Geschichte der Babenberger und ihrer Länder (Innsbruck, 1894); M. Schmitz, Oesterreichs Scheyern-Wittelsbacher oder die Dynastie der Babenberger (Munich, 1880).
BABER, or Babar (1483-1530), a famous conqueror of India and founder of the so-called Mogul dynasty. His name was Zahir ud-din-Mahomet, and he was given the surname of Baber, meaning the tiger. Born on the 14th of February 1483, he was a descendant of Timur, and his father, Omar Sheik, was king of Ferghana, a district of what is now Russian Turkestan. Omar died in 1495, and Baber, though only twelve years of age, succeeded to the throne. An attempt made by his uncles to dislodge him proved unsuccessful, and no sooner was the young sovereign firmly settled than he began to meditate an extension of his own dominions. In 1497 he attacked and gained possession of Samarkand, to which he always seems to have thought he had a natural and hereditary right. A rebellion among his nobles robbed him of his native kingdom, and while marching to recover it his troops deserted him, and he lost Samarkand also. After some reverses he regained both these places, but in 1501 his most formidable enemy, Shaibani (Sheibani) Khan, ruler of the Uzbegs, defeated him in a great engagement and drove him from Samarkand. For three years he wandered about trying in vain to recover his lost possessions; at last, in 1504, he gathered some troops, and crossing the snowy Hindu Kush besieged and captured the strong city of Kabul. By this dexterous stroke he gained a new and wealthy kingdom, and completely re-established his fortunes. In the following year he united with Hussain Mirza of Herat against Shaibani. The death of Hussain put a stop to this expedition, but Baber spent a year at Herat, enjoying the pleasures of that capital. He returned to Kabul in time to quell a formidable rebellion, but two years later a revolt among some of the leading Moguls drove him from his city. He was compelled to take to flight with very few companions, but his great personal courage and daring struck the army of his opponents with such dismay that they again returned to their allegiance and Baber regained his kingdom. Once again, in 1510, after the death of Shaibani, he endeavoured to obtain possession of his native country. He received considerable aid from Shah Ismael of Persia, and in 1511 made a triumphal entry into Samarkand. But in 1514 he was utterly defeated by the Uzbegs and with difficulty reached Kabul. He seems now to have resigned all hopes of recovering Ferghana, and as he at the same time dreaded an invasion of the Uzbegs from the west, his attention was more and more drawn towards India. Several preliminary incursions had been already made, when in 1521 an opportunity presented itself for a more extended expedition. Ibrahim, emperor of Delhi, had made himself detested, even by his Afghan nobles, several of whom called upon Baber for assistance. He at once assembled his forces, 12,000 strong, with some pieces of artillery and marched into India. Ibrahim, with 100,000 soldiers and numerous elephants, advanced against him. The great battle was fought at Panipat on the 21st of April 1526, when Ibrahim was slain and his army routed. Baber at once took possession of Agra. A still more formidable enemy awaited him; the Rana Sanga of Mewar collected the enormous force of 210,000 men, with which he moved against the invaders. On all sides there was danger and revolt, even Baber's own soldiers, worn out with the heat of this new climate, longed for Kabul. By vigorous measures and inspiriting speeches he restored their courage, though his own heart was nearly failing him, and in his distress he abjured the use of wine, to which he had been addicted. At Kanwaha, on the 10th of March 1527, he won a great victory and made himself absolute master of northern India. The remaining years of his life he spent in arranging the affairs and revenues of his new empire and in improving his capital, Agra. He died on the 26th of December 1530 in his forty-eighth year. Baber was above the middle height, of great strength and an admirable archer and swordsman. His mind was as well cultivated as his bodily powers; he wrote well, and his observations are generally acute and accurate; he was brave, kindly and generous.
Full materials for his life are found in his Memoirs, written by himself (translated into English by Leyden and Erskine (London, 1826); abridged in Caldecott, Life of Baber (London, 1844). See also Lane-Poole, Baber (Rulers of India Series), 1899.