Many varieties of buttons are used on clothing, but they may be divided into two main classes according to the arrangement by which they are attached to the garment; in one class they are provided with a shank which may consist of a metal loop or of a tuft of cloth or similar material, while in the other they are pierced with holes through which are passed threads. To these two classes roughly correspond two broad differences in the method of manufacture, according as the buttons are composite and made up of two or more pieces, or are simply shaped disks of a single material; some composite buttons, however, are provided with holes, and simple metal buttons sometimes have metal shanks soldered or riveted on them. From an early period buttons of the former kind were made by needlework with the aid of a mould or former, but about 1807 B. Sanders, a Dane who had been ruined by the bombardment of Copenhagen, introduced an improved method of manufacturing them at Birmingham. His buttons were formed of two disks of metal locked together by having their edges turned back on each other and enclosing a filling of cloth or pasteboard; and by methods of this kind, carried out by elaborate automatic machinery, buttons are readily produced, presenting faces of silk, mohair, brocade or other material required to harmonize with the fabric on which they are used. Sanders's buttons at first had metal shanks, but about 1825 his son invented flexible shanks of canvas or other substance through which the needle could pass freely in any direction. The mechanical manufacture of covered buttons was started in the United States in 1827 by Samuel Williston, of Easthampton, Mass., who in 1834 joined forces with Joel and Josiah Hayden, of Haydenville.
The number of materials that have been used for making buttons is very large—metals such as brass and iron for the cheaper kinds, and for more expensive ones, gold and silver, sometimes ornamented with jewels, filigree work, &c.; ivory, horn, bone and mother-of-pearl or other nacreous products of shell-fish; vegetable ivory and wood; glass, porcelain, paper, celluloid and artificial compositions; and even the casein of milk, and blood. Brass buttons were made at Birmingham in 1689, and in the following century the metal button industry underwent considerable development in that city. Matthew Boulton the elder, about 1745, introduced great improvements in the processes of manufacture, and when his son started the Soho works in 1767 one of the departments was devoted to the production of steel buttons with facets, some of which sold for 140 guineas a gross. Gilt buttons also came into fashion about the same period. In this "Augustan age" of the Birmingham button industry, when there was a large export trade, the profits of manufacturers who worked on only a modest scale amounted to £3000 and £4000 a year, and workmen earned from £2 to £4 a week. At one time the buttons had each to be fashioned separately by skilled artisans, but gradually the cost of production was lessened by the adoption of mechanical processes, and instead of being turned out singly and engraved or otherwise ornamented by hand, they came to be stamped out in dies which at once shape them and impress them with the desired pattern. Ivory buttons are among the oldest of all. Horn buttons were made at Birmingham at least by 1777; towards the middle of the igth century Emile Bassot invented a widely-used process for producing them from the hoofs of cattle, which were softened by boiling. Pearl buttons are made from pearl oyster shells obtained from various parts of the world, and after being cut out by tubular drills are shaped and polished by machinery. Buttons of vegetable ivory can be readily dyed. Glass buttons are especially made in Bohemia, as also are those of porcelain, which were invented about 1840 by an Englishman, R. Prosser of Birmingham. In the United States few buttons were made until the beginning of the 19th century, when the manufacture of metal buttons was started at Waterbury, Conn., which is now the centre of that industry. In 1812 Aaron Benedict began to make ivory and horn buttons at the same place. Buttons of vegetable ivory, now one of the most important branches of the American button industry, were first made at Leeds, Mass., in 1859 by an Englishman, A.W. Critchlow, and in 1875 commercial success was attained in the production of composition buttons at Springfield, Mass. Pearl buttons were made on a small scale in 1855, but their manufacture received an enormous impetus in the last decade of the 19th century, when J.F. Boepple began, at Muscatine, Iowa, to utilize the unio or "niggerhead" shells found along the Mississippi. By 1905 the annual output of these "fresh-water pearl" buttons had reached 11,405,723 gross, worth $3,359,167, or 36.6% of the total value of the buttons produced in the United States. In the same year the mother-of-pearl buttons ("ocean pearl buttons") numbered 1,737,830 gross, worth $1,511,107, and the two kinds together constituted 44% of the number, and 53.9% of the value, of the button manufactures of the United States. (See U.S.A. Census Reports, 1900, Manufactures, part iii. pp. 315-327.)
BUTTRESS (from the O. Fr. bouteret, that which bears a thrust, from bouter, to push, cf. Eng. "butt" and "abutment"), masonry projecting from a wall, provided to give additional strength to the same, and also to resist the thrust of the roof or wall, especially when concentrated at any one point. In Roman architecture the plans of the building, where the vaults were of considerable span and the thrust therefore very great, were so arranged as to provide cross-walls, dividing the aisles, as in the case of the Basilica of Maxentius, and, in the Thermae of Rome, the subdivisions of the less important halls, so that there were no visible buttresses. In the baths of Diocletian, however, these cross-walls rose to the height of the great vaulted hall, the tepidarium, and their upper portions were decorated with niches and pilasters. In a palace at Shuka in Syria, attributed to the end of the 2nd century A.D., where, in consequence of the absence of timber, it was necessary to cover over the building with slabs of stones, these latter were carried on arches thrown across the great hall, and this necessitated two precautions, viz. the provision of an abutment inside the building, and of buttresses outside, the earliest example in which the feature was frankly accepted. In Byzantine work there were no external buttresses, the plans being arranged to include them in cross-walls or interior abutments. The buttresses of the early Romanesque churches were only pilaster strips employed to break up the wall surface and decorate the exterior. At a slightly later period a greater depth was given to the lower portion of the buttresses, which was then capped with a deep sloping weathering. The introduction of ribbed vaulting, extended to the nave in the 12th century, and the concentration of thrusts on definite points of the structure, rendered the buttress an absolute necessity, and from the first this would seem to have been recognized, and the architectural treatment already given to the Romanesque buttress received
a remarkable development. The buttresses of the early English period have considerable projection with two or three sets-off sloped at an acute angle dividing the stages and crowned by triangular heads; and slender columns ("buttress shafts") are used at the angle. In later work pinnacles and niches are usually employed to decorate the summits of the buttresses, and in the still later Perpendicular work the vertical faces are all richly decorated with panelling.
BUTYL ALCOHOLS, C4H9OH. Four isomeric alcohols of this formula are known; two of these are primary, one secondary, and one tertiary (see Alcohols). Normal butyl alcohol, CH3·(CH2)2·CH2OH, is a colourless liquid, boiling at 116.8°, and formed by reducing normal butyl aldehyde with sodium, or by a peculiar fermentation of glycerin, brought about by a schizomycete. Isobutyl alcohol, (CH3)2CH·CH2OH, the butyl alcohol of fermentation, is a primary alcohol derived from isobutane. It may be prepared by the general methods, and occurs in fusel oil, especially in potato spirit. It is a liquid, smelling like fusel oil and boiling at 108.4° C. Methyl ethyl carbinol, CH3·C2H5·CHOH, is the secondary alcohol derived from n-butane. It is a strongly smelling liquid, boiling at 99°. Trimethyl carbinol or tertiary butyl alcohol, (CH3)3·COH, is the simplest tertiary alcohol, and was obtained by A. Butlerow in 1864 by acting with zinc methyl on acetyl chloride (see Alcohols). It forms rhombic prisms or plates which melt at 25° and boil at 83°, and has a spiritous smell, resembling that of camphor.
BUTYRIC ACID, C4H8O2. Two acids are known corresponding to this formula, normal butyric acid, CH3·CH2·CH2·COOH, and isobutyric acid, (CH3)2·CH·COOH. Normal butyric acid or fermentation butyric acid is found in butter, as an hexyl ester in the oil of Heracleum giganteum and as an octyl ester in parsnip (Pastinaca sativa); it has also been noticed in the fluids of the flesh and in perspiration. It may be prepared by the hydrolysis of ethyl acetoacetate, or by passing carbon monoxide over a mixture of sodium acetate and sodium ethylate at 205° C. (A. Geuther, Ann., 1880, 202, p.306), C2H5ONa + CH3COONa + CO = H·CO2Na + CH3·CH2·CH2·COONa. It is ordinarily prepared by the fermentation of sugar or starch, brought about by the addition of putrefying cheese, calcium carbonate being added to neutralize the acids formed in the process. A. Fitz (Ber., 1878, 11 p. 52) found that the butyric fermentation of starch is aided by the direct addition of Bacillus subtilis. The acid is an oily liquid of unpleasant smell, and solidifies at -19° C.; it boils at 162.3° C., and has a specific gravity of 0.9746 (0° C.). It is easily soluble in water and alcohol, and is thrown out of its aqueous solution by the addition of calcium chloride. Potassium bichromate and sulphuric acid oxidize it to carbon dioxide and acetic acid, while alkaline potassium permanganate oxidizes it to carbon dioxide. The calcium salt, Ca(C4H7O2)2·H2O, is less soluble in hot water than in cold.
Isobutyric acid is found in the free state in carobs (Ceratonia siliqua) and in the root of Arnica dulcis, and as an ethyl ester in croton oil. It may be artificially prepared by the hydrolysis of isopropylcyanide with alkalies, by the oxidation of isopropyl alcohol with potassium bichromate and sulphuric acid (I. Pierre and E. Puchot, Ann. de chim. et de phys., 1873, [4] 28, p. 366), or by the action of sodium amalgam on methacrylic acid, CH2·C(CH3)·COOH. It is a liquid of somewhat unpleasant smell, boiling at 155.5° C. Its specific gravity is 0.9697 (0°). Heated with chromic acid solution to 140° C., it gives carbon dioxide and acetone. Alkaline potassium permanganate oxidizes it to α-oxyisobutyric acid, (CH3)2·C(OH)·COOH, whilst concentrated nitric acid converts it into dinitroisopropane. Its salts are more soluble in water than those of the normal acid.
BUXAR, or Baxar, a town of India, in the district of Shahabad, Bengal, on the south bank of the Ganges, and on the East Indian railway. Pop. (1901) 13,945. There is a dismantled fort of small size which was important from its commanding the Ganges. A celebrated victory was gained here on the 23rd of October 1764 by the British forces under Major (afterwards Sir Hector) Munro, over the united armies of Shuja-ud-Dowlah and Kasim Ali Khan. The action raged from 9 o'clock till noon, when the enemy gave way. Pursuit was, however, frustrated by Shuja-ud-Dowlah sacrificing a part of his army to the safety of the remainder. A bridge of boats had been constructed over a stream about 2 m. distant from the field of battle, and this the enemy destroyed before their rear had passed over. Through this act 2000 troops were drowned, or otherwise lost; but destructive as was this proceeding, it was, said Major Munro, "the best piece of generalship Shuja-ud-Dowlah showed that day, because if I had crossed the rivulet with the army, I should either have taken or drowned his whole army in the Karamnasa, and come up with his treasure and jewels, and Kasim Ali Khan's jewels, which I was informed amounted to between two and three millions."
BUXTON, JEDEDIAH (1707-1772), English arithmetician, was born on the 20th of March 1707 at Elmton, near Chesterfield, in Derbyshire. Although his father was schoolmaster of the parish, and his grandfather had been the vicar, his education had been so neglected that he could not write; and his knowledge, except of numbers, was extremely limited. How he came first to know the relative proportions of numbers, and their progressive denominations, he did not remember; but on such matters his attention was so constantly riveted, that he frequently took no cognizance of external objects, and when he did, it was only with reference to their numbers. He measured the whole lordship of Elmton, consisting of some thousand acres, simply by striding over it, and gave the area not only in acres, roods and perches, but even in square inches. After this, he reduced them into square hairs'-breadths, reckoning forty-eight to each side of the inch. His memory was so great, that in resolving a question he could leave off and resume the operation again at the same point after the lapse of a week, or even of several months. His perpetual application to figures prevented the smallest acquisition of any other knowledge. His wonderful faculty was tested in 1754 by the Royal Society of London, who acknowledged their satisfaction by presenting him with a handsome gratuity. During his visit to the metropolis he was taken to see the tragedy of Richard III. performed at Drury Lane theatre, but his whole mind was given to the counting of the words uttered by David Garrick. Similarly, he set himself to count the steps of the dancers; and he declared that the innumerable sounds produced by the musical instruments had perplexed him beyond measure. He died in 1772.
A memoir appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine for June 1754, to which, probably through the medium of a Mr Holliday, of Haughton Hall, Nottinghamshire, Buxton had contributed several letters. In this memoir, his age is given as forty-nine, which points to his birth in 1705; the date adopted above is on the authority of Lysons' Magna Britannia (Derbyshire).