BERTHON, EDWARD LYON (1813-1899), English inventor, was born in London, on the 20th of February 1813, the son of an army contractor and descendant of an old Huguenot family. He studied for the medical profession in Liverpool and at Dublin, but after his marriage in 1834 he gave up his intention of becoming a doctor, and travelled for about six years on the continent. Keenly interested from boyhood in mechanical science, he made experiments in the application of the screw propeller for boats. But his model, with a two-bladed propeller, was only ridiculed when it was placed before the British admiralty. Berthon therefore did not complete the patent and the idea was left for Francis Smith to bring out more successfully in 1838. In 1841 he entered Magdalene College, Cambridge, in order to study for the Church. There he produced what is usually known as “Berthon’s log,” in which the suction produced by the water streaming past the end of a pipe projected below a ship is registered on a mercury column above. In 1845 he was ordained, and after holding a curacy at Lymington was given a living at Fareham. Here he was able to carry on experiments with his log, which was tested on the Southampton to Jersey steamboats; but the British admiralty gave him no encouragement, and it remained uncompleted. He next designed some instruments to indicate the trim and rolling of boats at sea; but the idea for which he is chiefly remembered was that of the “Berthon Folding Boat” in 1849. This invention was again adversely reported on by the admiralty. Berthon resigned his living at Fareham, and subsequently accepted the living of Romsey. In 1873, encouraged by Samuel Plimsoll, he again applied himself to perfecting his collapsible boat. Success was at last achieved, and in less than a year he had received orders from the admiralty for boats to the amount of £15,000. Some were taken by Sir George Nares to the Arctic, others were sent to General Gordon at Khartum, and others again were taken to the Zambezi by F.C. Selous. Berthon died on the 27th of October 1899.
BERTHOUD, FERDINAND (1727-1807), Swiss chronometer-maker, was born at Plancemont, Neuchâtel, in 1727, and settling in Paris in 1745 gained a great reputation for the excellence and accuracy of his chronometers. He was a member of the Institute and a fellow of the Royal Society of London, and among other works wrote Essais sur l’horlogerie (1763). He died in 1807 at Montmorency, Seine et Oise. He was succeeded in business by his nephew, Louis Berthoud (1759-1813).
BERTILLON, LOUIS ADOLPHE (1821-1883), French statistician, was born in Paris on the 1st of April 1821. Entering the medical profession, he practised as a doctor for a number of years. After the revolution of 1870, he was appointed inspector-general of benevolent institutions. He was one of the founders of the school of anthropology of Paris, and was appointed a professor there in 1876. His Démographie figurée de la France (1874) is an able statistical study of the population of France. He died at Neuilly on the 28th of February 1883.
His son Alphonse Bertillon, the anthropometrist, was born in Paris in 1853. He published in 1883 a work Ethnographie moderne des races sauvages, but his chief claim to distinction lies in the system invented by him for the identification of criminals, which is described by him in his Photographie judiciaire, Paris, 1890 (see [Anthropometry]). He was officially appointed in 1894 to report on the handwriting of the bordereau in the Dreyfus case, and was a witness for the prosecution before the cour de cassation on the 18th of January 1899.
BERTIN, a family of distinction in the history of French journalism. The most important member of the family, generally regarded as the father of modern French journalism, Louis François Bertin (1766-1841), known as Bertin aîné, was born in Paris on the 14th of December 1766. He began his journalistic career by writing for the Journal Français and other papers during the French Revolution. After the 18th Brumaire he founded the paper, with which the name of his family has chiefly been connected, the Journal des Débats. He was suspected of royalist tendencies by the consulate and was exiled in 1801. He returned to Paris in 1804 and resumed the management of the paper, the title of which had been changed by order of Napoleon to that of Journal de l’Empire. Bertin had to submit to a rigorous censorship, and in 1811 the conduct, together with the profits, was taken over entirely by the government. In 1814 he regained possession and restored the old title and continued his support of the royalist cause—during the Hundred Days; he directed the Moniteur de Gand—till 1823, when the Journal des Débats became the recognized organ of the constitutional opposition. Bertin’s support was, however, given to the July monarchy after 1830. He died on the 13th of September 1841. Louis François Bertin de Vaux (1771-1842), the younger brother of Bertin aîné, took a leading part in the conduct of the Journal des Débats, to the success of which his powers of writing greatly contributed. He entered the chamber of deputies in 1815, was made councillor of state in 1827, and a peer of France in 1830. The two sons of Bertin aîné, Edouard François (1797-1871) and Louis Marie François (1801-1854), were directors in succession of the Journal des Débats. Edouard Bertin was also a painter of some distinction.
BERTINORO, OBADIAH, Jewish commentator of the Mishnah, died in Jerusalem about 1500. Bertinoro much improved the status of the Jews in the Holy Land; before his migration thither the Jews of Palestine were in a miserable condition of poverty and persecution. His commentary on the Mishnah is the most useful of all helps to the understanding of that work. It is printed in most Hebrew editions of the Mishnah. Surenhusius, in his Latin edition of the last-named code (Amsterdam 1698-1703), translated Bertinoro’s commentary.