BAXTERIANS. See BAXTER, RICHARD.
BAY, in architecture, a term used to signify the magnitude of a building. Thus, if a barn consists of a floor and two heads, where they lay corn, they call it a barn of two bay's. These bays are from 14 to 20 feet long, and floors from 10 to 12 broad, and usually 20 feet long, which is the breadth of the barn. It is also used to denote the divisions of a church or cathedral from floor to roof, as indicated by the pillars or arches; as, a church of eight bays.
In botany, the name of several trees and shrubs, as sweet bay (Laurus nobilis) the laurel (q.v.) of the poets, used for crowning heroes in ancient times and for church decoration at the present. It has stiff, dull-green leaves some times used to flavor culinary dishes. Its sweet, fragrant, aromatic, cherry-like, purple fruits are edible. This tree is widely cultivated for orna ment in Europe and America, and is probably the most popular tub-plant used in open-air restaurants, esplanades, etc., on account of its ability to withstand neglect, abuse and shear ing. Several hundred thousand specimens are used annually on the two continents. The bay laurel is better known as the cherry laurel (Prunus laurocerasus). Its leaves yield prus sic acid, and were at one time extensively used as a poison. The loblolly bay (Gordonia lisi anthsu), white bay (Magnolia glasica), and red bay (Persea carolinensis), are natives of the southeastern United States. The
name rose bay is given to divers evergreen rho dodendrons, to oleander and sometimes to Epilobium assgustifolium. The California bay tree is Umbellularia californica. The from which bay rum (q.v.) is distilled is Myrcia acris. See LAUREL ; MAGNOLIA.
In geography, an arm of the sea, extending into the land. It is generally applied to smaller bodies of water than gulfs, of the same general geographical character, though the terms ggulf° and °bay° are used sometimes interchangeably and much to the confusion of geographical science. The word is of Saxon ongin and sig nifies an angle. It should properly be applied only to arms of the sea which are widest at their departure from the main line of sea coast, or mouth, while agulf° should be applied to such bodies of water as the Gulf of California, whose width is nearly the same throughout a great part of their extent.
or a sportsmen's name, in particular use along the south shore of Long Island, N. Y., for snipe, curlews, sand-pipers, avocets and other limi coline birds that frequent the shores and bays of estuaries. Compare SHORE-BIRDS.