Boilary

( Salt Manuf.) A place in salt-works where the salt is boiled. Boileau-Despréaux, ( bwaw'lo - da - pra -o',) NICOLAS, a French poet and satirist, B. 1636. His father was one of the registrars of the Parliament of Paris. B. was educated at the College d'Harcourt (afterwards College Royal de St. Louis), and early showed a talent for verse, which his family in every way discouraged. For a while he studied law, and became a lawyer; next, he turned to theology, and obtained a benefice, which he held until his father's death, from which event he derived a small independence, and thenceforward gave the reins to his poetic fancy. His earliest poetical attempts were in satire, by which he nullified a prediction made by his father, who, when comparing the genius of each of his three sons, used to say, "that as for Colin, he would never speak ill of anybody." But the seven Satires which B. published in 1666, with a preliminary addre to the king (a formula not to be omitted by any author who courted popular notice), were playful and sportive, not rabid and virulent; they showed, as he used to observe of himself, neither fang nor talon. They excited considerable attention among the lettered circles of the capital, by a tersene of language and a polish of versification to which the public ear had not heretofore been accustomed. Neverthele , they evince intimate acquaintance with his Roman predece ors, and an accurate estimate of the demerits of his own contemporaries, rather than any vein of originality or any intrinsic poetical superiority. The number was increased from time to time till they amounted to twelve. Of these, the tenth, on Women , perhaps cost most elaboration; but to us it appears to po e neither the deep-marked indignation with which the censor of Aquinum has lashed the vices of the sex, nor the light and airy grace with which the bard of Twickenham has touched their foi bles. These were followed by the Art of Poetry , and, in 1674, his Lutrin appeared, to our apprehension, B.'s best work. The general admiration of his poems led to his introduction at court, where he read some cantos of the Lutrin to Louis XIV., who granted him a pension of 2,000 livres (about $500 per annum), and the royal privilege to print his works. He was at the same time appointed joint historiographer with his friend and fellow-poet Racine. Besides the latter, Moliere and La Fontaine were among his most intimate friends. In the ecclesiastical disputes of his day, B. sided with the Jansenists. His latter years were pa ed in retirement. He refused to listen to those who would praise his verses. "I prefer," he said, "being read to being praised." B. was a man of real benevolence. Hearing that Corneille's pension was withdrawn, he instantly tendered the resignation of his own, saying, that, were Corneille's cancelled, he could not receive one without a feeling of shame. B. died in 1711. A large number of persons attended his funeral. "What a number of friends he had," said a woman in the crowd to Louis Racine, "and yet this is the man said to have spoken ill of all the world!" B. is one of that scanty number of poets who have left behind them "No line which, dying, they would wish to blot." Pope is sometimes called the English Boileau. "That notable practice of the boilers of saltpetre." - Boyle. (Mech.) A ve el in which water is boiled for the purpose of raising steam for the machinery of a factory; or a closed vase of wrought iron, or copper, in which water is vaporized, and employed in the gaseous form to impre movement upon steam-engines or other machines. In this case the effect of the machine is dependent upon the conversion of the water into vapor, and this power is the only one used. The B. must then satisfy certain conditions which are of the highest interest. Thus, as the motive power of the engine de pends upon the exce of the pre ure of the steam in the B. , it is nece ary that the latter should be of sufficient strength to resist it; and as the heat applied is always more or le costly, it is important that the fireplace should be constructed so as to employ the whole of it. The danger of allowing the B. to sink so low as to let the metal come in contact with cold water admitted suddenly, must also be carefully guarded against, and this nece ity gives rise to many contrivances of a complicated nature. The parts of a B. , ordinarily, are: the furnace , consisting of the fire - bars , the ash - pit , and the bridge ; the B. , properly speaking, with its steam chest, and pipe , and its safety-valves; the apparatus for ascertaining the level of the water and its pre ure in the B. , which consists in the steam -gauges, and the pre ure - gauge or manometer; the float and tubes ; and the chimney. Each of these parts has a separate use, and it requires a special adaptation to the cla of engine under consideration; for the purposes of ordinary commerce, some of the parts may be omitted, but they must all be present in steam-engines, and must be modified according to whether the B. is intended to work at high or low pre ure. Many varieties have been proposed in the manner of heating the water contained in the B. , and as the heat developed in the furnace acts more by the extent of the surface to which it is applied than by its intensity, every form has been recommended for this purpose in its turn; but, after all, it seems that local considerations are of more weight in deciding the kind of furnace than any abstract ones, and the style which might suit at one place would not suit at another. The principal forms of furnaces are referred to in other parts of this work, and the same remark may be extended to the other details; because there are no universal principles regulating their construction, which would admit of being laid down authoritatively. B. are known by names indicating shape, as: Cylindri cal, Hay-stack, Kettle , Spherical, Wagon; or position, as: Horizontal , Portable , Stationary , Upright , or Vertical ; or use, as: Locomotive, Marine ; or construction, as: Flue , Return - flue , Tubular , Water tube , Drop tube , Sectional, Flathers. Internal fire , Two-stack, Turn-over, Superheaters. The principal causes of the too frequent explosion of B. will be examined under INCRUSTATIONS.For heating water for the purpose of warming buildings, the boilers are very frequently made of copper, or of cast-iron, when the quantity of water to be heated is small, or of wrought-iron when it is greater; the latter material is, however, so generally used that it is alone worthy of notice. Boil'er-plate, n. ( Metal . ) The description of wrought iron which is wrought expre ly for the purpose of boiler-making, though by common error it is made to apply to the plates which are used for ship-building, bridges, or girders; all of which are now said to be constructed in boiler-plates. The average resistance of boiler-plates is taken at about 20 tons on the square inch, and the safe weight to which it may be loaded is usually taken at 5 tons on the square inch; the effect of riveting upon the structure is considered to be equivalent to a reduction of strength corresponding to that of the area occupied by the rivets. The Board of Trade, in England, require that the strength of wrought-iron structures should be at least equal to the above quantity of 5 tons per square inch.