Bar´ros, João de, Portuguese historian, born 1496. He was attached to the Court of King Emmanuel, who, after the publication in 1520 of Barros' romance, The Emperor Clarimond, urged him to undertake a history of the Portuguese in India, which appeared thirty-two years later. King John III appointed Barros Governor of the Portuguese settlements in Guinea, and General Agent for these colonies, further presenting him in 1530 with the province of Maranham, in Brazil, for the purpose of colonization. For his losses by the last enterprise the king indemnified him, and he died in retirement in 1570. Besides his standard work, the Decadas, a history of the Portuguese in India (a complete edition of which appeared at Lisbon between 1778 and 1788), he wrote a moral dialogue on compromise, and the first Portuguese Grammar.
Barro´sa, a village, Spain, near the S. W. coast of Andalusia, near which General Graham, when abandoned by the Spaniards, defeated a superior French force in 1811.
Bar´row, a river in the south-east of Ireland, province Leinster, rising on the borders of the King's and Queen's Counties, and after a southerly course joining the Suir in forming Waterford harbour. It is next in importance to the Shannon, and is navigable for vessels of 200 tons for 25 miles above the sea. Its principal tributary is the Nore.
Bar´row, Isaac, an eminent English mathematician and divine, born in London in 1630; studied at the Charterhouse and at Trinity College, Cambridge, of which he became a fellow in 1649. After a course of medical studies he turned to divinity, mathematics, and astronomy, and took his M. A. degree in 1652, and, failing to obtain the Cambridge Greek professorship, went abroad. In 1659 he was ordained; in 1660 elected Greek professor at Cambridge; in 1662 professor of geometry in Gresham College; and in 1663 Lucasian professor of mathematics at Cambridge, a post which he resigned to Newton in 1669. In 1670 he was created D. D., in 1672 master of Trinity College, and in 1675 vice-chancellor of Cambridge University. He died in 1677. His principal mathematical works (written in Latin) were: Euclidis Elementa (1655); Euclidis Data (1657); Mathematicæ Lectiones (1664-6); Lectiones Opticæ (1669); Lectiones Geometricæ (1670); Archimedis Opera; Apollonii Conicorum lib. iv; Theodosii Spherica, (1675). All his English works, which are theological, were left in MS., and published by Dr.
Tillotson in 1685, the best edition being that prepared by the Rev. A. Napier in 1859. As a mathematician Barrow was deemed inferior only to Newton. The Latin edition of his mathematical works was prepared by Whewell in 1860.
Barrow, Sir John, Bart., geographer and man of letters, born in 1764 in Lancashire. At the age of sixteen he went in a whaler to Greenland; and later on was teacher of mathematics in a school at Greenwich. In 1792 he was sent with Lord Macartney, in his embassy to China, to take charge of philosophical instruments for presentation to the Chinese emperor. His account of this journey was of great value, and not less so was the account of his travels in South Africa, whither he went in 1797 as secretary to Macartney. In 1804 he was appointed second secretary to the Admiralty, a post occupied by him for forty years. In 1835 he was made a baronet; and he died in 1848, three years after his retirement. Besides the accounts of his own travels, he published lives of Earl Macartney, Lord Anson, and Lord Howe; Voyages of Discovery and Research within the Arctic Regions; an Autobiography written at the age of eighty-three, &c.
Bar´row-in-Fur´ness, a seaport, county and parliamentary borough of Lancashire, in the district of Furness, opposite the Island of Walney, a town that has increased from a fishing-hamlet with 100 inhabitants in 1848 to a town of 74,254 inhabitants in 1921. Its prosperity is due to the mines of red hematite iron-ore which abound in the district, and to the railway rendering its excellent natural harbour available. It has several large docks, besides graving-docks, a floating dock capable of receiving vessels of 3000 tons, a large timber pond, &c. There is an extensive trade in timber, cattle, grain, and flour; and iron-ore and pig-iron are largely shipped. It has numerous blast-furnaces, and one of the largest Bessemer-steel works in the world. Besides ironworks, a large business is done in shipbuilding, the making of railway wagons and rolling-stock, ropes, sails, bricks, &c. A town hall, erected at a cost of £60,000, was opened in 1887. Barrow-in-Furness returns one member to Parliament.
Bar´rows, mounds of earth or stones raised to mark the resting-place of the dead, and distinguished, according to their shape, as long, bowl, bell, cone, and broad barrows. The practice of barrow-burial is of unknown antiquity and almost universal, barrows being found all over Europe, in Northern Africa, Asia Minor, Afghanistan, Western India, and in America. In the earliest barrows the enclosed bodies were simply laid upon the ground, with stone or bone implements and weapons beside them. In barrows of later date the remains are generally enclosed in a stone cist. Frequently cremation preceded the erection of the barrow, the ashes being enclosed in an urn or cist. A detailed description of an ancient barrow-burial is given in the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf.—Bibliography: Canon W. Greenwell, British Barrows; J. Anderson, Scotland in Pagan Times; W. C. Borlase, The Dolmens of Ireland.
Barrow Strait, the connecting channel between Lancaster Sound and Baffin's Bay on the east and the Polar Ocean on the west. Named after Sir John Barrow.