BOURNEMOUTH, a municipal and county borough and watering-place of Hampshire, England, in the parliamentary borough of Christchurch, 107½ m. S.W. by W. from London by the London & South-Western railway. Pop. (1901) 59,762. It is beautifully situated on Poole Bay. Considerable sandstone cliffs rise from the sandy beach, and are scored with deep picturesque dells or chines. The town itself lies in and about the valley of the Bourne stream. Its sheltered situation and desirable winter climate began to attract notice about 1840; in 1855 a national sanatorium for consumptive patients was erected by subscription; a pier was opened in 1861, and in 1870 railway communication was afforded. The climate is remarkably equable, being relatively warm in winter and cool in summer; the average temperature in July is 61.7° F., and in January 40.3°. The town contains numerous handsome buildings, including municipal buildings, churches, various places of entertainment, sanatoria and hospitals, a public library and a science and art school. Its suburbs have greatly extended along the sea front, and the beautiful chines of Boscombe, Alum and Branksome have attracted a large number of wealthy residents. There are piers at the town itself and at Boscombe, and the bathing is excellent. The parks, gardens and drives are extensive and pleasant. A service of electric tramways is maintained, notable as being the first system installed in England with a combination of the trolley and conduit principles of supplying current. There are golf links in Meyrick and Queen’s parks, both laid out by the corporation, which has in other ways studied the entertainment of visitors. The two railway stations are the Central and West, and through communications with the north are maintained by the Somerset & Dorset and Midland, and the Great Western and Great Central railways. The town, which is of wholly modern and remarkably rapid growth (for in the middle of the 19th century the population was less than 1000), was incorporated in 1890, and became a county borough in 1900. The corporation consists of a mayor, 11 aldermen and 33 councillors. Area, 5769 acres.
BOURNONITE, a mineral species, a sulphantimonite of lead and copper with the formula PbCuSbS3. It is of some interest on account of the twinning and the beautiful development of its crystals. It was first mentioned by Philip Rashleigh in 1797 as “an ore of antimony,” and was more completely described by the comte de Bournon in 1804, after whom it was named: the name given by Bournon himself (in 1813) was endellione, since used in the form endellionite, after the locality in Cornwall where the mineral was first found. The crystals are orthorhombic, and are generally tabular in habit owing to the predominance of the basal pinacoid (c); numerous smooth bright faces are often developed on the edges and corners of the crystals. An un-twinned crystal is represented in fig. 1. Usually, however, the crystals are twinned, the twin-plane being a face of the prism (m); the angle between the faces of this prism being nearly a right angle (86° 20′), the twinning gives rise to cruciform groups (fig. 2), and when it is often repeated the group has the appearance of a cog-wheel, hence the name Rädelerz (wheel-ore) of the Kapnik miners. The repeated twinning gives rise to twin-lamellae, which may be detected on the fractured surfaces, even of the massive material. The mineral is opaque, and has a brilliant metallic lustre with a lead-grey colour. The hardness is 2½, and the specific gravity 5.8.
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| Fig. 1.—Crystal of Bournonite. | Fig. 2.—Twinned Crystal of Bournonite. |
At the original locality, Wheal Boys in the parish of Endellion in Cornwall, it was found associated with jamesonite, blende and chalybite. Later, still better crystals were found in another Cornish mine, namely, Herodsfoot mine near Liskeard, which was worked for argentiferous galena. Fine crystals of large size have been found with quartz and chalybite in the mines at Neudorf in the Harz, and with blende and tetrahedrite at Kapnik-Bánya near Nagy-Bánya in Hungary. A few other localities are known for this mineral.
(L. J. S.)
BOURRÉE, a French name for a dance common in Auvergne and in Biscay in Spain; also a term for a musical composition or a dance-movement in a suite, somewhat akin to the gavotte, in quick time with two beats to the bar.