BILMA, or Kawar, an oasis in the heart of the Sahara desert, some 60 m. long by 10 broad. The inhabitants are Tibbu and Kanuri. The name Bilma is properly confined to the southern part of this region, where is the chief settlement, called Bilma or Garu. This place is 800 m. due S. of the town of Tripoli and about 350 N. of the N.W. corner of Lake Chad. In the vicinity are a number of lakes, the waters of which on evaporation yield large quantities of very pure and fine salt, which is the object of an extensive trade with the countries of Central Africa. North of Bilma is the town of Dirki, said to date from the 11th century. Near Bilma is a small circular oasis, kept green by a fine spring, but immediately to the south begins the most dreary part of the Saharan desert, over which the caravans travel for fifteen days without discovering the slightest trace of vegetable life. Gustav Nachtigal, who visited Bilma in 1870, records that the temperature during the day rarely sank below 113° Fahr. By the Anglo-French Declaration of the 21st of March 1899 Bilma was included in the French sphere of influence in West Africa. Turkey claimed the oasis as part of the hinterland of Tripoli and garrisoned Bilma in 1902. In 1906, however, a French force from Zinder occupied the town, no opposition being offered by the Ottoman authorities. In 1907 the oasis and surrounding district was created a circle of the Military Territory of the Niger (see [Sahara]).
BILNEY, THOMAS (d. 1531), English martyr, was born at or near Norwich. The exact date of his birth is uncertain, but at all events it was not before 1495. He was educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, graduating LL.B. and taking holy orders in 1519. Finding no satisfaction in the mechanical system of the schoolmen, he turned his attention to the edition of the New Testament published by Erasmus in 1516. “Immediately,” he records, “I felt a marvellous comfort and quietness.” The Scriptures now became his chief study, and his influence led other young Cambridge men to think along the same lines. Among his friends were Matthew Parker, the future archbishop of Canterbury, and Hugh Latimer. Latimer, previously a strenuous conservative, was completely won over, and a warm friendship sprang up between him and Bilney. “By his confession,” said Latimer, “I learned more than in twenty years before.” In 1525 Bilney obtained a licence to preach throughout the diocese of Ely. He denounced saint and relic worship, together with pilgrimages to Walsingham and Canterbury, and refused to accept the mediation of the saints. The diocesan authorities raised no objection, for, despite his reforming views in these directions, he was to the last perfectly orthodox on the power of the pope, the sacrifice of the mass, the doctrine of transubstantiation and the authority of the church. But Wolsey took a different view. In 1526 he appears to have summoned Bilney before him. On his taking an oath that he did not hold and would not disseminate the doctrines of Luther, Bilney was dismissed. But in the following year serious objection was taken to a series of sermons preached by him in and near London, and he was arrested and imprisoned in the Tower. Arraigned before Wolsey, Warham, archbishop of Canterbury, and several bishops in the chapter-house at Westminster, he was convicted of heresy, sentence being deferred while efforts were made to induce him to recant, which eventually he did. After being kept for more than a year in the Tower, he was released in 1529, and went back to Cambridge. Here he was overcome with remorse for his apostasy, and after two years determined to preach again what he had held to be the truth. The churches being no longer open to him, he preached openly in the fields, finally arriving in Norwich, where the bishop, Richard Nix, caused him to be arrested. Articles were drawn up against him by Convocation, he was tried, degraded from his orders and handed over to the civil authorities to be burned. The sentence was carried out in London on the 19th of August 1531. A parliamentary inquiry was threatened into this case, not because parliament approved of Bilney’s doctrine but because it was alleged that Bilney’s execution had been obtained by the ecclesiastics without the proper authorization by the state. In 1534 Bishop Nix was condemned on this charge to the confiscation of his property. The significance of Bilney’s execution lies in the fact that on essential points he was an orthodox Roman Catholic.
See Letters and Papers of Henry VIII. vols. iv.-v.; Foxe’s Acts and Monuments; Gairdner’s History of the Church; Pollard’s Henry VIII.
(A. F. P.)
BILOXI, a city of Harrison county, Mississippi, U.S.A., in the south part of the state, on Biloxi Bay, a branch of the Mississippi Sound, which is a part of the Gulf of Mexico. By rail it is 80 m. N.E. of New Orleans and 61 m. S.E. of Mobile, Alabama. Pop. (1880) 1540; (1890) 3234; (1900) 5467 (949 being negroes and 455 foreign-born); (1910) 7988. The city is served by a branch of the Louisville & Nashville railway, and by an electric railway extending to Bay St Louis, through Gulfport (pop., 1900, 1060; 1910, 6386), 13 m. S.W., the port of entry of the Pearl River customs district, whose exports, chiefly timber, lumber, naval stores and charcoal, were valued at $8,392,271 in 1907. Biloxi is both a summer and a winter resort, particularly for the people of New Orleans and Mobile, and has a fine beach, extending for about 12 m. around its peninsula, and bordered by an automobile drive; along the beach are some attractive residences, hotels and boarding houses, and several sanatoriums. The city’s principal industries are the canning of oysters, shrimp, fish, figs and vegetables, and the manufacture of fertilizers and flour. A beautiful thin faience with remarkable metallic glazes is made here. The municipality owns the water-works, the water being obtained from artesian wells. Pierre le Moyne d’Iberville (1661-1706) in 1699 built Fort Maurepas across the bay from the present city; and the settlement there, called Biloxi after the Biloxi Indians, was the first to be established by the French in this region. In 1702 this post, known as Old Biloxi, was abandoned, and the seat of government was removed to the Mobile river. In 1712 a settlement was made on the present site, being the first permanent settlement within what is now the state of Mississippi. Many of the early settlers were French Canadians, who came down the Mississippi to join the new colony. Biloxi was again the capital from 1719 until 1722. It was incorporated as a village in 1872, and was chartered as a city in 1896.
BILSTON, a market town of Staffordshire, England, 2½ m. S.E. of Wolverhampton and 124 N.W. of London, in the Black Country. Pop. of urban district (1901) 24,034. It is served by the Great Western railway, and by the London & North-Western at Ettingshall Road station. In the vicinity are very productive mines of coal and ironstone, as well as sand of fine quality for casting, and grinding-stones for cutlers. Bilston contains numerous furnaces, forges, rolling and slitting mills for the preparation of iron, and a great variety of factories for japanned and painted goods, brass-work and heavy iron goods. Though retaining no relics of antiquity, the town is very ancient, appearing in Domesday. The parish church of St Leonard, dating as it stands mainly from 1827, is on the site of a building of the 13th century. Bilston suffered severely from an outbreak of cholera in 1832. The town is within the parliamentary borough of Wolverhampton.