BISTRE, the French name of a brown paint made from the soot of wood, now largely superseded by Indian ink.
BIT (from the verb "to bite," either in the sense of a piece bitten off, or an act of biting, or a thing that bites or is bitten), generally, a piece of anything; the word is, however, used in various special senses, all derivable from its origin, either literally or metaphorically. The most common of these are (1) its use as the name of various tools, e.g. centre-bit; (2) a horse's "bit," or the metal mouth-piece of the bridle; (3) in money, a small sum of money of varying value (e.g. threepenny-bit), especially in the West Indies and southern United States.
BITHUR, a town in the Cawnpore district of the United Provinces of India, 12 m. N.W. of Cawnpore city. Pop. (1901) 7173. It is chiefly notable for its connexion with the mutiny of 1857. The last of the peshwas, Baji Rao, was banished to Bithur, and his adopted son, the Nana Sahib, made the town his head-quarters. It was captured by Havelock on the 19th of July 1857, when the Nana's palaces were destroyed.
BITHYNIA ([Greek: Bituvia]), an ancient district in the N.W. of Asia Minor, adjoining the Propontis, the Thracian Bosporus and the Euxine. According to Strabo it was bounded on the E. by the river Sangarius; but the more commonly received division extended it to the Parthenius, which separated it from Paphlagonia, thus comprising the district inhabited by the Mariandyni. On the W. and S.W. it was separated from Mysia by the river Rhyndacus; and on the S. it adjoined Phrygia Epictetus and Galatia. It is in great part occupied by mountains and forests, but has valleys and districts near the sea-coast of great fertility. The most important mountain range is the (so-called) "Mysian" Olympus (7600 ft.), which towers above Brusa and is clearly visible as far away as Constantinople (70 m.). Its summits are covered with snow for a great part of the year. East of this the range now called Ala-Dagh extends far above 100 m. from the Sangarius to Paphlagonia. Both of these ranges belong to that border of mountains which bounds the great tableland of Asia Minor. The country between them and the coast, covered with forests and traversed by few lines of route, is still imperfectly known. But the broad tract which projects towards the west as far as the shores of the Bosporus, though hilly and covered with forests--the Turkish Aghatch Denizi, or "The Ocean of Trees"--is not traversed by any mountain chain. The west coast is indented by two deep inlets, (1) the northernmost, the Gulf of Ismid (anc. Gulf of Astacus), penetrating between 40 and 50 m. into the interior as far as Ismid (anc. Nicomedia), separated by an isthmus of only about 25 m. from the Black Sea; (2) the Gulf of Mudania or Gemlik (Gulf of Cius), about 25 m. long. At its extremity is situated the small town of Gemlik (anc. Cius) at the mouth of a valley, communicating with the lake of Isnik, on which was situated Nicaea.