BIQUADRATIC (from the Lat. bi-, bis, twice, and quadratus, squared). In mathematics, the biquadratic power or root of a quantity is its fourth power or root (see [Algebra]); a biquadratic equation is an equation in which the highest power of the unknown is the fourth (see [Equation]: Biquadratic).
BIQUINTILE (from Lat. prefix bi-, twice, quintilis, fifth), the aspect of two planets which are distant from each other twice the fifth part of a great circle, i.e. 144°. It was one of the new aspects introduced by Kepler.
BIRBHUM, a district of British India in the Burdwan division of Bengal, situated in the Gangetic plain and partly on the hills, being bounded on the south by the river Ajai. The administrative headquarters are at Suri, which is the only town in the district. The area comprises 1752 sq. m. The eastern portion of the district is the ordinary alluvial plain of the Gangetic delta; the western part consists of undulating beds of laterite resting on a rock basis, and covered with small scrub jungle. The Ajai, Bakheswar and Mor or Maurakshi, are the principal rivers of the district, but they are merely hill streams and only navigable in the rains. In 1901 the population was 902,280, showing an increase of 13% in the decade. The principal industry is the spinning and weaving of silk, chiefly from tussur or jungle silkworms. There are also several lac factories. The loop-line of the East Indian railway runs through the district, with a junction at Nalhati for Murshidabad.
History.—Birbhum in the early part of the 13th century was a Hindu state, with its capital at Rajnagar or Nagar. In the course of the century it was conquered by the Pathans and formed part of the Pathan kingdom of Bengal. At the beginning of the 18th century it appears as a kind of military fief held under the nawab of Murshidabad by one Asadullah Pathan, whose family had probably been its chieftains since the fall of the Pathan dynasty of Bengal in 1600. It passed into British possession in 1765, but the East India Company did not assume its direct government until 1787, when that course became necessary. In the interval it had been a prey to armed bands from the highlands of Chota Nagpur, with whom the raja was unable to cope, and who practically brought the trade of the Company in the district to a standstill. The two border principalities of Birbhum and Bankura were accordingly united into a district under a British collector, being, however, separated again in 1793. By 1789, after considerable trouble, the marauders were driven back into their mountains, and since that time (except during the Santal rising of 1855) the district has been one of the most peaceful and prosperous in India.
See Imperial Gazetteer of India (Oxford, 1908), vol. viii. s.v.
BIRCH, SAMUEL (1813-1885), English Egyptologist and antiquary, was born on the 3rd of November 1813, being the son of the rector of St Mary Woolnoth, London. From an early age he manifested a tendency to the study of out-of-the-way subjects, and after a brief employment in the Record Office obtained in 1836 an appointment in the antiquities department of the British Museum on account of his knowledge of Chinese. He soon extended his researches to Egyptian, and when the cumbrous department came to be divided he was appointed to the charge of the Egyptian and Assyrian branch. In the latter language he had assistance, but for many years there was only one other person in the institution—in a different department—who knew anything of ancient Egyptian, and the entire arrangement of the department devolved upon Birch. He found time nevertheless for Egyptological work of the highest value, including a hieroglyphical grammar and dictionary, translations of The Book of the Dead and the Harris papyrus, and numerous catalogues and guides. He further wrote what was long a standard history of pottery, investigated the Cypriote syllabary, and proved by various publications that he had not lost his old interest in Chinese. Paradoxical in many of his views on things in general, he was sound and cautious as a philologist; while learned and laborious, he possessed much of the instinctive divination of genius. He died on the 27th of December 1885.