BRUCITE, a mineral consisting of magnesium hydroxide, Mg(OH)2, and crystallizing in the rhombohedral system. It was first described in 1814 as "native magnesia" from New Jersey by A. Bruce, an American mineralogist, after whom the species was named by F.S. Beudant in 1824; the same name had, however, been earlier applied to the mineral now known as chondrodite. Brucite is usually found as platy masses, sometimes of considerable size, which have a perfect cleavage parallel to the surface of the plates. It is white, sometimes with a tinge of grey, blue or green, varies from transparent to translucent, and on the cleavage surfaces has a pronounced pearly lustre. In general appearance and softness (H = 2½) it is thus not unlike gypsum or talc, but it may be readily distinguished from these by its optical character, being uniaxial with positive birefringence, whilst gypsum is biaxial and talc has negative birefringence. The specific gravity is 2.38-2.40. In the variety known as nemalite the structure is finely fibrous and the lustre silky: this variety contains 5 to 8% of ferrous oxide replacing magnesia, and has consequently a rather higher specific gravity, viz. 2.45. Another variety, manganbrucite, has the magnesia partly replaced by manganous oxide (14%), and thus forms a passage to the isomorphous mineral pyrochroite, Mn(OH)2.
Brucite is generally associated with other magnesian minerals, such as magnesite and dolomite, and is commonly found in serpentine, or sometimes as small scales in phyllites and crystalline schists; it has also been observed in metamorphosed magnesian limestone, such as the rock known as predazzite from Predazzo in Tirol. The best crystals and foliated masses are from Texas in Pennsylvania, U.S.A., and from Swinaness in Unst, one of the Shetland Isles. Nemalite is from Hoboken, New Jersey, and from Afghanistan. At all these localities the mineral forms veins in serpentine.
(L. J. S.)
BRÜCKENAU, a town and fashionable watering-place of Germany, in the kingdom of Bavaria, on the Sinn, 16 m. N.W. of Kissingen. The mineral springs, five in number, situated in the pleasant valley of the Sinn, 2 m. from the town, were a favourite resort of Louis I. of Bavaria. Pop. 1700.
BRUCKER, JOHANN JAKOB (1696-1770), German historian of philosophy, was born at Augsburg. He was destined for the church, and graduated at the university of Jena in 1718. He returned to Augsburg in 1720, but became parish minister of Kaufbeuren in 1723. In 1731 he was elected a member of the Academy of Sciences at Berlin, and was invited to Augsburg as pastor and senior minister of the church of St Ulrich. His chief work, Historia Critica Philosophiae, appeared at Leipzig (5 vols., 1742-1744). Its success was such that a new edition
was published in six volumes (1766-1767; English translation by W. Enfield, 1791). It is by this work alone that Brucker is now known. Its merit consists entirely in the ample collection of materials. He also wrote Tentamen Introductionis in Historiam Doctrinae de Ideis, afterwards completed and republished under the title of Historia Philosophicae Doctrinae de Ideis (Augsburg, 1723); Otium Vindelicum (1731); Kurze Fragen aus der philosophischen Historie (7 vols., Ulm, 1731-1736), a history of philosophy in question and answer, containing many details, especially in the department of literary history, which he omitted in his chief work; Pinacotheca Scriptorum nostra aetate literis illustrium, &c. (Augsburg, 1741-1755); Ehrentempel der deutschen Gelehrsamkeit (Augsburg, 1747-1749); Institutiones Historiae Philosophicae (Leipzig, 1747 and 1756; 3rd ed. with a continuation by F.G.B. Born (1743-1807) of Leipzig, in 1790); Miscellanea Historiae Philosophicae Literariae Criticae olim sparsim edita (Augsburg, 1748); Erste Anfangsgrunde der philosophischen Geschichte (Ulm, 1751). He superintended an edition of Luther's translation of the Old and New Testament, with a commentary extracted from the writings of the English theologians (Leipzig, 1758-1770, completed by W.A. Teller). He died at Augsburg in 1770.
BRÜCKMANN, FRANZ ERNST (1697-1753), German mineralogist, was born on the 27th of September 1697 at Marienthal near Helmstädt. Having qualified as a medical man in 1721, he practised at Brunswick and afterwards at Wolfenbüttel. His leisure time was given up to natural history, and especially to mineralogy and botany. He appears to have been the first to introduce the term oolithus to rocks that resemble in structure the roe of a fish; whence the terms oolite and oolitic. He died at Wolfenbüttel on the 21st of March 1753. He published Magnalia Dei in locis subterraneis (Brunswick, 1727), Historia naturalis curiosa lapidis (1727), and Thesaurus subterraneus Ducatus Brunsvigii (1728).
BRUCKNER, ANTON (1824-1896), Austrian musical composer, was born on the 4th of September 1824 at Ansfelden in upper Austria. He successfully competed for the organistship for Linz Cathedral in 1855. In 1867 he succeeded his former master of counterpoint, Sechter, as organist of the Hofkapelle in Vienna, and also became professor in the conservatorium. In 1875 he was appointed to a lectureship in the university. His most striking talent was shown in his extemporizations on the organ. His success in an organ competition at Nancy in 1869 led to his playing in Paris and London (six recitals at the Albert Hall, 1871). His permanent reputation, however, rests on his compositions, especially his nine symphonies. In these gigantic efforts the influence of Wagner is paramount in almost every feature of harmony and orchestration; and if sustained seriousness of purpose and style were all that was necessary to give coherence to works in which these influences are stultified by the rhythmic uniformities of an experienced improvisatore and the impressions of classical form as taught in schools, then Bruckner would certainly have been what the extreme Wagnerian party called him, the symphonic successor of Beethoven, or the Wagner of the symphony. But their lack of organization and proportion, to say nothing of humour, will always make their revival a somewhat severe task. No composer has ever been more consistent to lofty ideals, though few who have ever had an ideal have shown less adroitness in their methods of embodying it. The most poetic and admired feature of his style is a slow growth to a gigantic climax, slow enough and gigantic enough for any situation in Wagner's Nibelungen tetralogy. The symphonies in which these climaxes occur are in obviously unskilful classical form, with only an outward appearance of freedom; and the Great Pyramid would hardly be more out of place in an Oxford quadrangle than Bruckner's climaxes in his four-movement symphonies with their "second subjects" and recapitulations. Nor is it likely that Bruckner would have been much more successful in handling these gigantic things in their legitimate Wagnerian dramatic environment, for even in his last three symphonies he hardly ever frees himself from the trammels of square rhythm; and, as he accepts the classical sonata-forms without inquiry into their meaning or relevance, so he accepts the Wagnerian stage orchestra in its minutest details, without inquiry as to its relevance for the purposes and acoustics of the concert-room, and with the same lack of sense of relief that ruins the balance of his rhythmic periods. So unsophisticated a temperament may be not unpoetical, but it is eminently undramatic, as well as unsymphonic. Of Bruckner's choral works, which include three masses and several psalms and motets, the most famous is the Te Deum (1885?),[[1]] which shows his characteristic power in massive effect. Bruckner wished this to be appended to the three complete movements of his 9th symphony, which his last illness (ending in his death at Vienna on the 11th of October 1896) prevented him from finishing. This 9th symphony is designed, with characteristic tactlessness and simplicity, to follow Beethoven's 9th symphony in every possible point which could challenge comparison; in key (D minor), opening (mysterious tremolo leading to tremendous unison tutti), contrasts (return in first movement) and choral finale. The three complete movements were first performed in Vienna in 1903, and have done more for Bruckner's fame than anything since the production in 1884 of his 7th symphony (of which the slow movement is an elegy on the death of Wagner). It is probable that the impression produced by this 9th symphony is the deeper as owing little or nothing to the musical politics which had gone far to prevent the 7th symphony from standing on its own unmistakable merits. It does not, however, seem likely that Bruckner's work will have much influence on musical progress; for the modern characteristics in which its strength lies are obviously better realized in other forms which have often been handled successfully by composers greatly Bruckner's inferiors both in invention and sincerity.
(D. F. T.)
[1] This date is given in Grove (new ed.), but the style of the work is far earlier than that of the 7th symphony (1884) which quotes it in the slow movement.