BRANCO, or PARIMA, a river of northern Brazil and tributary of the Rio Negro, formed by the confluence of the Takutú, or "Upper Rio Branco," and Uraricoera, about 3° N. lat. and 60° 28' W. long., and flowing south by west to a junction with the Negro. It has rapids in its upper course, but the greater part of its length of 348 m. is navigable for steamers of light draught. The Takutú rises in the Roraima and Coïrrit ranges on the Guiana frontier, while the Uraricoera rises in the Serra de Parima, on the Venezuelan frontier, and has a length of 360 m. before reaching the Branco. These are white water rivers, from which the Branco (white) derives its name, and at its junction with the Negro the two differently-coloured streams flow side by side for some distance before mingling.
BRANCOVAN, or BRANCOVEANU, the name of a family which has played an important part in the history of Rumania. It was of Servian origin and was connected with the family of Branko or Brankovich. Constantine Brancovan, the most eminent member of the family, was born in 1654, and became prince of Walachia in 1689. In consequence of his anti-Turkish policy of forming an alliance first with Austria and then with Russia, he was denounced to the Porte, deposed from his throne, brought under arrest to Constantinople and imprisoned (1710) in the fortress of Yedi Kuleh (Seven Towers). Here he was tortured by the Turks, who hoped thus to discover the fortune of £3,000,000, which Constantine was alleged to have amassed. He was beheaded with his four sons on the 26th of August 1714. His faithful friend Enake Vacarescu shared his fate. Constantine Brancovan became, through his tragic death, the hero of Rumanian popular ballads. His family founded and endowed the largest hospital in Walachia, the so-called Spital Brancovanescu.
See O.G. Lecca, _Familiile Boeresti Române_ (Bucharest, 1899), p. 90, sqq. (M. G.)
BRAND, JOHN (1744-1806), English antiquary, was born on the 19th of August 1744 at Washington, Durham, where his father was parish clerk. His early years were spent at Newcastle-on-Tyne with his uncle, a cordwainer, to whom he was apprentice in his fourteenth year. Showing promise, however, at Newcastle grammar school, friends interested themselves in him and assisted him to go to Oxford. It was not, however, until his twenty-eighth year that he matriculated at Lincoln College, but before this he had been ordained, holding in succession the curacies of Bolam, Northumberland, of St Andrew's, Newcastle, and of Cramlington, 8 m. from the county town. He graduated in 1775 and two years later was elected fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. Having for a short time been under-usher at the Newcastle grammar school, the duke of Northumberland, a former patron, gave him in 1784 the rectory of the combined parishes of St Mary-at-Hill and St Mary Hubbard, London. Appointed secretary to the Society of Antiquaries in the same year, he was annually re-elected until his death in 1806. He was buried in the chancel of his church. His most important work is _Observations on Popular Antiquities: including the whole of Mr Bourne's "Antiquitates Vulgares," with addenda to every chapter of that work_. This was published in London in 1777, and after Brand's death, a new edition embodying the MSS. left by him, was published by Sir Henry Ellis in 1813. Brand also published a poem entitled: _On Illicit Love, written among the ruins of Godstow Nunnery, near Oxford_ (1775, Newcastle); _The History and Antiquities of Newcastle-upon-Tyne_ (2 vols., London, 1789), and many papers in the _Archaeologia_.