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BLAIR ATHOLL (Gaelic blair, " a plain"), a village and parish of Perthshire, Scotland, 354 m. N.W. of Perth by the Highland railway. Pop. (1901) 367; of parish, 1722. It is situated at the confluence of the Tilt and the Garry. The oldest part of Blair Castle, a seat of the duke of Atholl, dates from 1269; as restored and enlarged in 1869-1872 from the plans of David Bryce, R.S.A., it is a magnificent example of the Scottish baronial style. It was occupied by the marquess of Montrose prior to the battle of Tippermuir in 1644, stormed by the Cromwellians in 1653, and garrisoned on behalf of James II. in 1689. The Young Pretender stayed in it in 1745, and the duke of convention of 1880, divided between the two nearly equal forces of Blaine and General U. S. Grant - John Sherman of Ohio also having a considerable following - struggled through thirty-six ballots, when the friends of Blaine, combining with those of Sherman, succeeded in nominating General James A. Garfield. In the new administration Blaine became secretary of state, but, owing to the assassination of President Garfield and the reorganization of the cabinet by President Chester A. Arthur, he held the office only until December 1881. His brief service was distinguished by several notable steps. In order to promote the friendly understanding and co-operation of the nations on the American continents he projected a Pan-American congress, which, after being arranged for, was frustrated by his retirement. He also sought to secure a modification of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, and in an extended correspondence with the British government strongly asserted the policy of an exclusive American control of any isthmian canal which might be built to connect the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

With undiminished hold on the imagination and devotion of his followers he was nominated for president in 1884. After a heated canvass, in which he made a series of brilliant speeches, he was beaten by a narrow margin in New York. By many, including Blaine himself, the defeat was attributed to the effect of a phrase, "Rum, Romanism and Rebellion," used by a clergyman, Rev. Samuel D. Burchard (1812-1891), on the 29th of October 1884, in Blaine's presence, to characterize what, in his opinion, the Democratic party stood for. The phrase was not Blaine's, but his opponents made use of it to misrepresent his attitude toward the Roman Catholics, large numbers of whom are supposed, in consequence, to have withdrawn their support. Refusing to be a presidential candidate in 1888, he became secretary of state under President Harrison, and resumed his work which had been interrupted nearly eight years before. The Pan-American congress, then projected, now met in Washington, and Blaine, as its master spirit, presided over and guided its deliberation through its session of five months. Its most important conclusions were for reciprocity in trade, a continental railway and compulsory arbitration in international complications. Shaping the tariff legislation for this policy, Blaine negotiated a large number of reciprocity treaties which augmented the commerce of his country. He upheld American rights in Samoa, pursued a vigorous diplomacy with Italy over the lynching of eleven Italians, all except three of them American naturalized citizens, in New Orleans on the 14th of May 1891, held a firm attitude during the strained relations between the United States and Chile (growing largely out of the killing and wounding of American sailors of the U.S. ship "Baltimore" by Chileans in Valparaiso on the 16th of October 1891), and carried on with Great Britain a resolute controversy over the seal fisheries of Bering Sea, - a difference afterwards settled by arbitration. He resigned on the 4th of June 1892, on the eve of the meeting of the Republican national convention, wherein his name was ineffectually used, and he died at Washington, D.C., on the 27th of January 1893.

During his later years of leisure he wrote Twenty Years of Congress (1884-1886), a brilliant historical work in two volumes. Of singularly alert faculties, with a remarkable knowledge of the men and history of his country, and an extraordinary memory, his masterful talent for politics and state-craft, together with his captivating manner and engaging personality, gave him, for nearly two decades, an unrivalled hold upon the fealty and affection of his party.

See the Biography of James G. Blaine (Norwich, Conn., 1895) by Mary Abigail Dodge ("Gail Hamilton"), and, in the "American Statesmen Series," James G. Blaine (Boston, 1905) by C. E. Stanwood; also Mrs Blaine's Letters (1908). (C. E. S.) BLAINVILLE, HENRI MARIE DUCROTAY DE (1777-1850), French naturalist, was born at Argues, near Dieppe, on the 12th of September 1777. About 1796 he went to Paris to study painting, but he ultimately devoted himself to natural history, and attracted the attention of Baron Cuvier, for whom he occasionally lectured at the College de France and at the Athenaeum. In 1812 he was aided by Cuvier to obtain the chair of anatomy and zoology in the Faculty of Sciences at Paris, but subsequently an estrangement grew up between the two men and ended in open enmity. In 1825 Blainville was admitted a member of the Academy of Sciences; and in 1830 he was appointed to succeed J. B. Lamarck in the chair of natural history at the museum. Two years later, on the death of Cuvier, he obtained the chair of comparative anatomy, which he continued to occupy for the space of eighteen years, proving himself no unworthy successor to his great teacher. He died at Paris on the 1st of May 1850. Besides many separate memoirs, he was the author of Prodrome d'une nouvelle distribution methodique du regne animal (1816); Osteographie ou description iconographique comparee du squelette, &c. (1839-1864); Faune francaise (1821-1830); Cours de physiologie generale et comparee (1833); Manuel de malacologie et de conchyliologie (1825-1827); Histoire des sciences de l'organisme (1845).