BIENNE, LAKE OF, or Bielersee, a lake in Switzerland, S.W. of the town of Bienne, and extending along the southern foot of the Jura range. It is 7½ m. in length, 2½ m. broad and 249 ft. in depth, while its surface is 1424 ft. above the sea-level, and its area 16 sq. m. In it is the Île de St Pierre, where Rousseau resided for a short time in 1765. Many traces of lake-dwellings have been discovered on the shores of the lake. It receives the river Suze or Scheuss at its north-east end, while the Hagneck canal leads the waters of the Aar into the lake, as that of Nidau conducts them out again. At the southwestern end the river Thièle or Zihl flows into this lake from that of Neuchâtel.
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BIERSTADT, ALBERT (1830-1902), American landscape painter, was born in Solingen, Westphalia, Germany, on the 7th of January 1830, and was taken to the United States when about a year old. In 1853-1856 he studied painting at Düsseldorf. His pictures of the western part of the United States, and particularly the Rocky Mountains, made him widely popular. His “Estes Park, Colorado,” is in the collection of the earl of Dunraven; his “Sierra Nevada” (1878) is in the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, and “The Valley of Yosemite” in the James Lenox collection in New York. He received many German and Austrian decorations, and was a chevalier of the French Legion of Honour. He rendered panoramic views with a certain ability, though his work was rather topographically correct and impressive than artistic in conception and execution. He was a member of the National Academy of Design of New York, and is represented by two historical paintings, “The Discovery of the Hudson River,” and “The Settlement of California,” in the Capitol in Washington, D.C. He died in New York City on the 18th of February 1902.
BIFROST, in Old Norse mythology, the rainbow, which was supposed to form the bridge by which the gods passed between heaven and earth. It was guarded by Heimdal, god of light.
BIGAMY (from Lat. bis, twice, and Gr. γάμος, marriage), in English law. according to the statute now in force (24 and 25 Vict. c. 100, § 57), the offence committed by a person who “being married shall marry any other person during the life of the former husband or wife.” In the canon law the word had a rather wider meaning, and the marriage of a clerk in minor orders with a widow came within its scope. At the council of Lyons (A.D. 1274) bigamists were stripped of their privilege of clergy. This canon was adopted and explained by an English statute of 1276; and bigamy, therefore, became a usual counterplea to the claim of benefit of clergy. However, by an act of 1547 every person entitled to the benefit of clergy is to be allowed the same, “although he hath been divers times married to any single woman or single women, or to any widow or widows, or to two wives or more.”
A bigamous marriage, by the ecclesiastical law of England, is simply void. By a statute of 1604 the offence was made a felony. This statute, after being repealed in 1828, was re-enacted and reproduced in the Offences against the Person Act 1861. It is immaterial whether the second marriage has taken place within England and Ireland or elsewhere, and the offence may be dealt with in any county or place where the defendant shall be apprehended or be in custody. The following clause embodies the necessary exceptions to the very general language used in the definition of the offence.—“Provided that nothing in this section contained shall extend to any second marriage contracted elsewhere than in England and Ireland by any other than a British subject, or to any person marrying a second time whose husband or wife shall have been continuously absent from such person for the space of seven years then last past, and shall not have been known by such person to be living within that time, or shall extend to any person who at the time of such second marriage shall have been divorced from the bond of the first marriage, or to any person whose former marriage shall have been declared void by any court of competent jurisdiction.” The punishment is penal servitude for not more than seven nor less than five years, or imprisonment with or without hard labour, not exceeding two years.