Becerra (be-ther´a˙), Gaspar, Spanish painter and sculptor, born 1520, died 1570. He studied under Michel Angelo at Rome, and is credited with the chief share in the establishment of the fine arts in Spain.
Beche (bāsh), Sir Henry de Ia, an English geologist, born 1796, died 1855. He founded the geological survey of Great Britain, which was soon undertaken by the Government, De la Beche being appointed director-general. He also founded the Jermyn Street Museum of Economic or Practical Geology, and the School of Mines. His principal works are: Geology of Jamaica, Classification of European Rocks, Geological Manual, Researches in Theoretical Geology, Geology of Cornwall, Devon, and West Somerset, &c.
Bêche-de-Mer (bāsh-dē-mār). See Trepang.
Becher (beh´er), Johann Joachim, German chemist, born in 1625 or 1635, died in London 1682. He became a professor at Mainz; was elected a member of the Imperial Council at Vienna, 1660, but fell into disgrace and subsequently resided in various parts of Germany, Holland, Italy, Sweden, and Great Britain. His chief work, Physica Subterranea, containing many of the fanciful theories of the alchemists, was published in 1669, and enlarged in 1681. Among his other works are Laboratorium portabile and Alphabetum minerale.
Bechstein (beh´stīn), Johann Matthäus, German naturalist, born in 1757, died in 1822. He wrote a popular Natural History of Germany, and various works on forestry, in which subject his labours were highly valuable. In Britain he is best known by a treatise on cage birds.
Bechuanas, or Betchuanas (bech-wan´az), a widely-spread race of people inhabiting the central region of South Africa north of Cape Province. They belong to the great Kaffir stem, and are divided into tribal sections. They live chiefly by husbandry and cattle-rearing, and they work with some skill in iron, copper, ivory, and skins. They were led to seek British protection owing to the encroachments of the Boers. The southern portion of their territory was first placed under British protection in 1885, and subsequently the whole Bechuana country up to the Zambezi was annexed. In 1895 the
southern portion (then a Crown colony) was united to the Cape Colony; the remainder is still a protectorate partly under native chiefs. The head-quarters of the British administration are at Mafeking in the Cape Province. Bechuanaland Protectorate comprises the territory lying between the Molopo River on the south and the Zambezi on the north, and extending from the Transvaal Province and Matabeleland on the east to South-West Africa; area, 275,000 sq. miles; pop. 125,350, of whom about 1700 are Europeans. It is generally flat or slightly undulating, and is essentially a grass country, the grasses being nutritious and standing drought well. Surface water is scarce, but there is underground water, besides swampy lakes such as Ngami. Some parts are wooded and well watered. Gold, coal, and copper have been found. There is railway connection both with south and north.—Cf. G. W. Stow, The Native Races of South Africa.
Beck Case, The, a celebrated case of mistaken identity, which involved a grave miscarriage of justice. Adolf Beck, a Swede, had been sentenced in 1890 to seven years' penal servitude for a series of mean frauds committed against some women, and in 1904 he was again convicted and sentenced for a similar offence. Soon after his second trial a Jew named John Smith, who had been convicted of fraudulency in 1877, was arrested for similar frauds committed while Beck was in custody. The resemblance between the two men was remarkable, and it was eventually discovered that Beck was entirely innocent. He received two King's pardons, and the sum of £5000 from the Home Office as compensation. A commission which considered the case drew attention in its report to the carelessness of the police in identifying Beck with Smith, though the latter was a Jew; and stated that further legal training was desirable for the subordinate officials in the Home Office. Beck died in poverty in 1909. Cf. J. Kempster, Perversion of Justice as exhibited in the Beck Case.
Beckenham, a suburban locality on the south of London, in West Kent, now forming an urban district, lying south of Sydenham. Pop. 33,350.
Beck´er, Wilhelm Adolf, German archæologist, born at Dresden 1796, died at Meissen 1846. In 1828 he became a teacher at Meissen, in 1837 was appointed extraordinary professor of classical archæology at Leipzig, and in 1842 ordinary professor. Best-known works: Gallus, or Roman Scenes of the Time of Augustus; and Charicles, or Illustrations of the Life of the Ancient Greeks, which wonderfully reproduce the social life of old Rome and Greece.