PYCNOGONIDE-PYM.

will bear it. The internal administration of hyposulphate of soda and of the hyposulphites generally, has been lately recommended by Professor Polli of Milan.

Considering that pyæmia is the cause of death in 10 per cent. of all cases of amputation, and in 43 per cent. of all fatal primary amputations, it becomes a question of great importance how it can be prevented. Persons whose health is already broken down require careful preparation before undergoing an operation. They must be strengthened,' says Mr Callender, by tonics, such as quinine and iron; and their secretions must be set right by appropriate alteratives; this treatment must be continued for a considerable period; for if the health be much broken, it is slow of taking effect, and its employment for only a few days prior to an operation is of course simply useless. The diet should at the same time be attended to; and persons of intemperate habits should be accustomed to a more healthy mode of living, although in no case should the stimulants be too suddenly withdrawn.' On the same principles, after the operation has been performed, these patients must have their strength supported by a nutritious diet; must have stimulants freely given them, if there are any signs of incipient prostration; and should take opium in sufficient doses to quiet the system and allay irritation.

that every spring they were attacked by the cranes on the coasts of Oceanus. Later writers place them at the mouths of the Nile, but we also read of northern Pygmies inhabiting the region of Thule, and of Pygmies who lived in subterranean dwellings on the eastern side of the Ganges. Greek fancy worked hard to paint the Lilliputian dimensions of these creatures. It was said that they cut down every corn-ear with an axe; that when Hercules came into their country, they climbed up his goblet, by the help of ladders, to drink from it; and that, when he was asleep, two whole Pygmy armies fell upon his right, and another on his left, hand, but were all rolled up by the hero in his lion's skin. Aristotle did not believe that the stories about Pygmies were utterly fabulous, however much they had been overlaid by fancy with the marvellous. His rationalistic' (if not rational) interpretation was, that they were probably some diminutive tribe in Upper Egypt, who rode very small horses, and lived in caves.

PYM, JOHN, famous as the leader of the popular party in the House of Commons in the reign of Charles I., was born in the year 1584. He came of a good family in Somersetshire, and was proprietor of the lands of Woolavington Pym and Woolavington Throckmorton, near Bridgewater, in that county. He was for some years a gentlemancommoner of Pembroke College, Oxford, and afterPYCNOGO'NIDÆ, a very remarkable family of wards studied law at one of the Inns of Court. Crustacea, of the section Edentata of Milne-Edwards, Having been sent to parliament as member for and forming the order Araneiformes (Spider-like) Tavistock, in Devonshire, he attached himself to of some authors. By Cuvier and many other the popular party; and, during the later part of naturalists, a place was assigned them among the reign of James I., became noted for his vigorous Arachnida; and it is only of late that they have opposition to the arbitrary measures of the court. been decidedly referred to Crustacea, in consequence In 1626, the year after the accession of Charles I., of the discovery that they undergo metamorphoses. he distinguished himself by taking a prominent part They are all marine, and some of them live among in the impeachment of the king's favourite, the alge, or are to be found under stones on the beach, Duke of Buckingham. In 1840, the functions of whilst others are dredged from deep water. They parliament having been in abeyance for 13 years, seem to prey by suction on during which time the popular discontents had molluscs, but probably on gradually been growing to a head, the celebrated many kinds of marine Long Parliament was convened; and from the first, animals. The legs of many, P. was by common consent recognised in it as the as in the genus Pycnogonum, leader of the opposition to the despotic policy of the are furnished with hooks monarch. For the position which he thus occupied, for taking hold, and Linnæus his qualifications were eminent. In temper, he was believed P. littorale to be bold and fearless; he was master of an eloquence, parasitic on whales; but it close, terse, and vigorous; and in knowledge of 18 not uncommon among parliamentary form and business procedure, it was sea-weeds on the British considered he had scarcely his equal in the House. coasts. The suctorial proOn November 3, as soon as business had opened, boscis of these creatures he set forth to the House, in a long and elaborate address, the intolerable grievances under which the whole head. The abdomen nation laboured; and a week after, he boldly deis almost rudimentary. Their most remarkable char-nounced the Earl of Strafford as the 'great promoter acteristic is in their digestive cavity. The stomach of tyranny,' to whose evil influence on the mind gives off from its circumference ten long cæca, four of the king these grievances were in the main to of which on each side extend into the proper or be attributed. In the impeachment of Strafford locomotive legs, the other two into the pincer-like which followed, resulting in his execution under a rudimentary foot-jaws. These ramifications of the bill of attainder passed upon him, Pym took the alimentary canal seem to serve all the purposes of leading part. Of this master-stroke of policy, the circulatory, respiratory, and chyliferous systems which deprived the king of the one man of resolute of higher animals. This arrangement, which ap- temper and powerful genius who adhered to his pears also among the inferior tribes of some other cause, the credit must be chiefly awarded to Pym. classes of animals, has received from M. de Quatre- In the subsequent proceedings against Laud, he was fages the name of Phlebenterism (Gr. vein-intestineisin). The stomach of the P. with its cæca floats almost freely within the general cavity of the body in a fluid, which is kept in agitation by the movements of the limbs.

Pycnogonum littorale. may be said to form the

PY CNOSTYLE. See INTERCOLUMNIATION. PY'GMIES (Gr. pygmē, a measure-from the elbow to the hand), a fabulous race of dwarfs in whose existence the ancients believed. Homer says

also conspicuous, as in every other crisis of moment, up to the time when war became inevitable between the king and the parliament. On the breaking out of hostilities, he remained at his post in London, and in the exercise of the functions of the executive there, rendered services to the cause not les valuable and essential than those of a general in the field. While the strife was yet pending, he died somewhat suddenly at Derby House, on December 8, 1643, having been appointed to the

1

PYRACANTHA-PYRAMID.

important post of Lieutenant of the Ordnance only the month previous. He was buried at Westminster Abbey with great pomp on the 13th; and in token of grief for the great parliamentary leader, was borne to his last resting-place by six members of the House of Commons. The House of Commons also voted £10,000 in payment of his debts.

PYRACA'NTHA. See CRATÆGUS

PY'RAMID, in Geometry, is a solid figure, of which the base is a plane rectilinear figure, and the sides are triangles, converging to a point at the top or apex.' Pyramids, like prisms, are named from the form of their bases; thus, a pyramid having a triangle for its base is a triangular pyramid, with a square base, a square pyramid, with any four-sided figure for its base, a quadrangular pyramid; or it may be pentagonal, hexagonal, &c. Pyramids may be either 'right' or oblique. See PRISM. A right pyramid, with an equilateral figure for its base, has all its sloping edges equal; but this is not the case if the pyramid be oblique. The most remarkable property of the pyramid is, that its volume is exactly one-third of that of a prism having the same base and vertical height; and it follows from this, that all pyramids having the same base and height are equal to each other.

The

orifice beyond it. The Pyramid was faced by add.
ing courses of long blocks on each layer of the
steps, and then cutting the whole to a flat or even
surface, commencing from the summit. The outer
masonry, however, or casing, as it is called, has in
most instances been partially stripped off. Provision
was made for protecting the vertical joints by
placing each stone half way over another.
means by which such immense masses of stone were
masonry is admirably finished; and the mechanical
raised to their places has long been a mystery; the
discovery, however, of large circular holes in some of
the stones has led to the conclusion that they were
wound up by machines. The stones were quarried
on the spot; sometimes, however, granite taken
from the quarries of Syene was partially employed.
The entrances were carefully filled up, and the
passage protected by stone portcullises and other
chamber. There appears to have been also a door
contrivances, to prevent ingress to the sepulchral
or pylon at the entrance of the shaft, ornamented
sides of the pyramids face the cardinal points, and
with Egyptian sculptures and hieroglyphs.
the entrances face the north. The work of the
larger Pyramids was executed by corvées of
labourers. The most remarkable and finest Pyra
mids are those of Gizeh, situated on a level space
of the Libyan chain at Memphis, on the west
C

The

PYRAMID, a structure of the shape of the geometric figure so called, erected in different parts of the Old and New World, the most important being the Pyramids of Egypt and Mexico. Those of Egypt were considered one of the seven wonders of the world, are seventy in number, of different sizes, are between 29° and 30° N. lat., and are masses of stone or brick, with square bases, and triangular sides. Although various opinions have prevailed as to their use, as that they were erected for astronomical purposes, for resisting the encroachment of the sand of the desert, for granaries, reservoirs, or sepulchres, the last-mentioned hypothesis has been proved to be correct in recent times by the excavations of the late General Howard Vyse, who is said to have expended nearly £10,000 in investigating their object and structure. They were all the tombs of monarchs of Egypt who flourished from the fourth to the twelfth dynasty, none having been constructed later than that time; the subsequent kings being buried at Abydos, Thebes, and other places, in tombs of a very different construction. The meaning of the word pyramid is involved, Section of a Pyramid; B, horizontal section of the base, rubble

SOUTH

NORTH

work, and casing of a Pyramid; C, apex of a Pyramid, shewing the process of finishing from the top downwards.

bank of the Nile. The three largest are the most

in great obscurity; although attempts have been made to derive it from the Coptic piharam, yet, as in the hieroglyphs, it is found | in connection with the words ben ben or ber famous. ber, forms of the Coptic beebe mahou, or tomb, The first or Great Pyramid, as appears from the and abmer, or sepulchre, it is probably an excavations of Vyse, was the sepulchre of the ancient Greek word. The Pyramids are solid Cheops of Herodotus, the Chembes, or Chemmis, of mounds raised over the sepulchral chambers of Diodorus, and the Suphis of Manetho and Eratosthe kings, the first act of an Egyptian monarch thenes. Its height was 480 feet 9 inches, and being to prepare his future eternal abode.' its base 764 feet square; in other words, it was For this purpose, a shaft of the size of the intended higher than St Paul's Cathedral, on an area the size sarcophagus was first hollowed in the rock at of Lincoln's Inn Fields. Its slope or angle was a suitable incline to lower it, and at a convenient 51° 50′. It has been, however, much spoiled and depth a rectangular chamber was excavated in stripped of its exterior blocks for the building of the solid rock. Over this chamber, a cubical mass Cairo. The original sepulchral chamber, called the of masonry, of square blocks, was then placed, Subterranean Apartment, 46 feet x 27 feet, and 11 leaving the orifice of the shaft open. Additions feet 6 inches high, has been hewn in the solid rock, continued to be made to this cubical mass both and was reached by the original passage of 320 feet in height and breadth as long as the monarch lived, | long, which descended to it by an entrance at the so that at his death all that remained to be done was to face or smooth the exterior of the stepformed mound. But in some cases, the masonry passed beyond the orifice of the shaft, which involved the construction of a new shaft, having its

foot of the Pyramid. The excavations in this direction were subsequently abandoned, on account of the vast size attained by the Pyramid, which rendered it impracticable to carry on the entrance on a level with the natural rock, which had been cut down and

29

PYRAMID.

Section of Great Pyramid of Gizeh :

(From Vyse's Pyramids of Gizeh.)

D, débris and remains of casing; Q, queen's chamber; K. king's chamber; O, outer casing gena, by the sinking of line; S, N, air channels; W, well; sub., subterranean apartment.

PYRAMUS AND THISBE-PYRENEES.

with that of the king Sahura. A group of eleven Pyramids remains at Sakkara, one with a doorway inlaid with porcelain tiles, and having a royal name. Five other Pyramids are at Dashour, the northernmost of which, built of brick, is supposed to be that of the king Asychis of Herodotus, and has a name of a king apparently about the twelfth dynasty. Others are at Meydoon and Illahoon; and two at Biahmo, at Medinat El Fyoum, apparently the sepulchres of the last kings of the twelfth dynasty. Some small brick Pyramids of the kings of the eleventh dynasty are at the Drah Aboo Negger at Thebes. In Nubia, the ancient Æthiopia, are several Pyramids, the tombs of the monarchs of Meroë, and of some of the Ethiopian conquerors of Egypt. They are taller in proporates in the promontories of Norfeo and Creuz. The tion to their base than the Egyptian Pyramids, and generally have a sepulchral hall, or propylon, with sculptures, which faces the east. The principal groups of these Pyramids are at Bege Rauie, or Begromi, 17° N. lat., in one of which, gold rings and other objects of late art, resembling that of the Ptolemaic period, were found.

PY'RENEES, the name of that mountain-range which, separating France from Spain, extends 270 miles in length, and from 30 to 70 miles in breadth, from the Gulf of Rosas, in the Mediterranean, to the south-east corner of the Bay of Biscay. This mountain-system, covering an area estimated at 12,600 sq. m., consists of two great chains, one of which runs east from the Bidassoa to the west bank of the Noguera Pallaresa; and the other, originating in the Pic du Midi d'Ossau (9510 feet), lat. about 0° 25′ W., a little to the north of the former, extends eastward, and, after being intersected at the Val d'Aran by the Garonne and many smaller streams, reaches the Mediterranean, on the shores of which, immediately north of the Gulf of Rosas, it terminnorthern slopes of these mountains to the plains and undulating districts of the south-west of France, are of gradual descent; while the southern slopes descend to the mountainous regions of Northern Spain by steep terraces. That portion of this mountain-system in which the eastern part of the southern, and the western part of the northern In Assyria, the Birs Nimrud, or Tower of Belus, chains run parallel to each other, is called the High was a kind of step-shaped Pyramid of seven or Middle P.-a district about 16 miles in length, different-coloured bricks, dedicated to the planets by and forming the wildest and most elevated portion Nebuchadnezzar. The Mujellibe, another mound, of the whole system. In the south-west of the was of pyramidal shape. The Pyramid also entered Middle P. is a series of lofty summits, beginning into the architecture of the tomb of Sardanapalus with the Pic du Midi de Pau (9544 feet), and ending at Tanus, and of the Mausoleum of Artemisia at with the barren Maladetta, whose highest point, Halicarnassus. A small Pyramid, the sepulchre of the Pic de Nethou or Malahite (11,168 feet), is the C. Cestius, imitated from the Egyptian in the days highest summit in the system. Between these two of Augustus, still exists within the wall of Aurelian summits, there are several upwards of 10,000 feet at Rome. Temples and other monuments of pyra-high, as Mont Perdu (10,994 feet). The northmidal shape are found in India, China, Java, the eastern and less elevated portion of the Middle P. Polynesian Islands, and elsewhere. The Toltecs and forms a rampart, frequently interrupted by transAztecs erected temples in Mexico, called Teocalli, verse valleys, and of which the principal summits or abodes of gods, of pyramidal shape, with steps are the Pic de Gavisos (8170 feet) and the Pic du or terraces by which to ascend and reach an altar, Midi de Barèges (9307 feet). The Eastern P. generally placed on the summit, where they per-rise in their highest summits into the region of formed human sacrifices and other rites. These, perpetual snow, and as far as the sources of the however, are not true Pyramids, the pure and simple Segre, form a mighty unbroken wall of rock. From form of which is restricted to Egypt. The Pyramid this point, however, they assume a different charentered extensively into the architecture of the acter, decreasing in height, and being intersected by Egyptians, and appears on the tops of obelisks and valleys. The West P. nowhere reach the snow tombs as a kind of roof. Small models of Pyra- line, as their highest summit, the Pic d'Anie, does mids, with inscribed adorations to the sun, or having not rise above 7500 feet. Forming at first ridges royal names, were also placed in the tombs.-Lepsius, of from 6000 to 7000 feet, they decrease in height Ueber den Bau der Pyramiden, 1843; Briefe, pp. 143, as they extend west, until, on the Lower Bidassoa, 217; Wilkinson, Topogr. of Thebes (Lond. 1835);Vyse, they take the form of isolated masses about 3000 Operations carried on at Gizeh in 1837 (8vo. Lond. feet high. The average height of the P. is from 1840-1842); Gliddon, Otia Ægyptiaca (Lond. 1849); 6000 to 7210 feet. At an almost equal elevation Smyth, Life and Work at the Great Pyramid (1867). are most of the mountain-passes. These passes, PY'RAMUS AND THI'SBE. The tragical his- called in some places cols, in others ports (Span. tory of these two lovers is told by Ovid in the 4th puerto), are about 100 in number, though only book of his Metamorphoses. They were natives of seven of them are practicable for wagons and cannon. Babylon, and tenderly attached to each other, but The most important are the roads of St Jean de as their parents would not hear of their marriage, Luz over the Bidassoa to Vittoria, St Jean l'ied they had to content themselves with clandestine du Port to Pampluna, and that from Perpignan over interviews by night. On one occasion they arranged Junquera to Gerona. The P. comprise no extento meet at the tomb of Ninus, where Thisbe, who sive and long valleys. Generally, the valleys are was first at the trysting-spot, was startled to dis- small and caldron-shaped, and communicate by cover a lioness. She immediately ran off, but in means of narrow passes. The rivers are inconher terror and haste, dropped her garment, which siderable. The region of perpetual snow, which, on the fierce animal, that had just torn an ox in pieces, the northern slopes of the mountains, begins at the covered with blood. Soon after, Pyramus appeared, height of 8137 feet, and on the southern slopes at and seeing his mistress's robe, came to the conclusion 8858 feet, comprises no extensive snow or ice tracts. that she had been murdered, whereupon he killed Glaciers are few and small, and nowhere occur lower himself. Thisbe now returned, and beholding her than 7800 feet. On the warm and dry southern lover lying dead on the ground, put an end to her slopes, no glaciers occur. Few forests exist, and own life. The story was a favourite one during the the steep walls of rock, parched by the sun and middle ages, when a couple, unhappy in their love, mid-day winds, are either quite bare, or are covered were termed a Pyramus and Thisbe. Shakspeare, with low brushwood and meagre pasture. in his Midsummer Night's Dream, has intro- more gradually declining northern slopes, on which duced it but in a way that has the effect of snow and springs are more abundant, shew a richer vegetation, and are for the most part covered

caricature.

The

PYRENEES-PYRITES.