500

PYTHIAN GAMES-PYX.

to form an idea of the Pythagorean philosophy, obliged to rely face of the tail double. The tip of the muzzle is plated; the lips almost entirely on the compilations of later writers (mainly are grooved. The species are all natives of the Old World. They Diogenes Laertius, and the Neo-Platonists, Porphyrius and are all large; some of them very large, and rivalled in size by no Iamblichus, all of them long subsequent to the Christian era), serpents except the boas of America. The name Boa is often who often but imperfectly understood the details they gave. The popularly given to the pythons, and in its ancient use belongs to tendency of the school was toward the consideration of abstrac- them. Some of the pythons are known in the East Indies by the tions as the only true materials of science' (Lewes's Biographical name of ROCK SNAKE, as P. molurus, a species very extensively History of Philosophy), and to Number was allotted the most diffused. This name is given to some species which belong to the prominent place in their system. They taught that in Number genus or subgenus Hortulia, one of which, the NATAL ROCK only is absolute certainty to be found; that Number is the Essence SNAKE (H. Natalensis), is said to attain so large a size that its of all things; that things are only a copy of Numbers; nay, that body is as thick as that of a man. Although a native of Natal, it in some mysterious way, Numbers are things themselves. This is already unknown in the settled parts of the colony. Python Number theory was probably worked out from the fundamental reticulatus is probably the largest snake of India and Ceylon. It conception, that, after destroying or disarranging every other at- is found also in more eastern regions. What size it attains is not tribute of matter, there still remains the attribute Number; we well known. Specimens of 15 or 20 feet long are common, but it still can predicate that the thing is one. With this doctrine of certainly attains a much larger size. It seems to be this snake Number was intimately connected that of the Finite and the In- which is sometimes called ANACONDA. It is rather brilliantly finite, corresponding respectively with the Odd and the Even in colored; its body being covered with gold and black, finely interNumber; and from a combination of this Finite and Infinite it was taught that all things in the Universe result. The abstract principle of all perfection was One and the Finite; of imperfection, the Many and the Infinite. Essentially based also on the same doctrine, was the Theory of Music; the System of the Universe, which was conceived as a Kosmos, or one harmonious whole, consisting of ten heavenly bodies revolving round a Central Fire, the Hearth or Altar of the Universe; and the celebrated doctrine of the Harmony of the Spheres-the music produced, it was supposed, by the movement of these heavenly bodies, which were arranged at intervals according with the laws of harmonyforming thus a sublime Musical Scale. The Soul of Man was believed to partake of the nature of the Central Fire, possessing three elements, Reason, Intelligence, and Passion; the first distinctive of Man, the two last common to Man and Brutes.

Python, or Rock Snake (Hortulia Natalensis).

mixed. The forehead is marked by a longitudinal brown stripe. Although sluggish for some time after a repast, it is at other times very active, and easily scales the highest garden walls. It feeds seize buffaloes, tigers, and even elephants, and to crush them in their coils. In this there is perhaps some exaggeration; but there are well-authenticated stories of snakes in the East Indies quite capable of killing at least the buffalo and the tiger (see My Indian Journal, by Colonel Walter Campbell; Edin. 1864, pp. 126, 127)

The Ethical teaching of the Pythagoreans was of the purest and most spiritual kind; Virtue was regarded as a harmony of the soul, a conformity with, or approximation to, the Deity; Self-on deer and smaller animals; but the largest pythons are said to Restraint, Sincerity, and Purity of Heart were especially commended; and Conscientiousness and Uprightness in the affairs of life would seem to have been their distinguishing characteristics. The Pythagorean system was carried on by a succession of disciples down to about 300 B.C., when it seems to have gradually died out, being superseded by other systems of philosophy; it was revived about two centuries later, and lasted for a considerable time after the Christian era-disfigured by the admixture of other doctrines, and an exaggeration of the mysticism and ascetic practices, without the scientific culture of the earlier school. In addition to the writers above mentioned, scattered and scanty notices-affording, however, really the most trustworthy information that we possess, as to the life and doctrines of P. occur in Herodotus, Plato, Aristotle (the latter especially), and a few other authors. Fuller details on the subject will be found in the Histories of Greece by Thirlwall and Grote, in the works of Ritter, Brandis, Tennemann, Erdmann, Ueberweg, and Lewes on the History of Philosophy; in Zeller's Philosophie der Griechen, and Ferrier's lectures on the same subject; and in Smith's Dictionary.

for the communion of the sick or for the adoration of the

ent times.

PYX (Gr. pyxis, a box, properly of boxwood), the sacred vesse used in the Catholic Church to contain the consecrated eucharis tic elements, which are preserved after consecration, whether faithful in the churches. Its form has varied very much at differAnciently it was sometimes of the form of a dove, which was hung suspended over the altar. More commonly, however, it was, as its name implies, a simple box, generally of the precious metals, or, at least, of metal plated with gold or silAt present, the pyx is commonly cup-shaped, with a closefitting cover of the same material. The interior is ordered to be of gold, or at least plated with gold. Like all the other sacred utensils connected with the administration of the eucharist, it must be blessed by a bishop, or a priest delegated by a bishop.

ver.

PY'THIAN GAMES, one of the four great national festivals PYX, TRIAL OF THE, the final trial by weight and assay of of the Greeks, held in the Crissæan plain, near Delphi, are said the gold and silver coins of the United Kingdom, prior to their (according to the prevalent mythological legend) to have been in-issue from the Mint. It is so called from the Pyx, i. e., box or stituted by Apollo after vanquishing the snaky monster, Python, chest, in which are deposited specimen coins. When the coins and were certainly in the earliest times celebrated in his honor are weighed into bags at the Mint, two pieces are taken out of every ninth year. They were at first under the management of each bag, one for assay within the Mint, the other for the pyx. the Delphians, but about 590-586 B.C. the Amphictyous were in- The latter are sealed up by three officers and deposited in the trusted with the conduct of them, and arranged that they should chest or pyx. The trial takes place about once in three years by be held every fifth year. Some writers state that it was only a jury of goldsmiths, summoned by the Lord Chancellor. The after this date that they were called Pythian. Originally, the jury are charged by the Lord Chancellor, at the Exchequer contests were restricted to singing, with the accompaniment of Office, Whitehall, in presence of several privy councillors, and of cithern-playing, but the Amphictyons added the flute, athletic the officers of the Mint. Being furnished with a piece of gold contests, and horse-racing. By and by, contests in tragedy, and and silver from the trial plates deposited in the Exchequer, they other kinds of poetry, in historical recitations, and in works of are required to declare to what degree the coin under examinaart, were introduced, and long continued a distinguishing feature tion deviates from them. The jury then proceed to Goldsmiths' of these games, which are believed to have lasted down to nearly Hall, where assaying apparatus is in readiness, and the sealed the end of the 4th c. A.D. The prize was a laurel wreath and packets of coin being delivered to them by the officers of the the symbolic palm-branch. Several of Pindar's extant odes re-pieces taken from the whole are melted into a bar, from which Mint, are first tried by weight, after which a certain number of late to victors in the Pythian Games. the assay trials are taken. A favorable verdict relieves the officers PYTHON, a genus of serpents of the family Boida (see BOA), of the Mint from responsibility, and constitutes a public attestadiffering from the true boas in having the plates on the under sur-tion of the standard purity of the coin.

QUADRAGESIMA-QUADRATURE OF THE CIRCLE.

501

Q.

THE seventeenth letter of the Latin, English, and | tions involved in the other problems above mentioned; but more
other western alphabets, is identical in power especially that of the quadrature of the circle, in which the diffi-
with the letter K (q. v.). It is always followed culty is of a different nature from that involved in the other two
by u.
geometrical ones. A few words about them, however, will help
as an introduction to the subject.

QUADRAGE'SIMA (Lat. 'fortieth day'), the name of the Lenten season, or more properly of the first Sunday of the Lent. It is so called by analogy with the three Sundays which precede Lent, and which are called respectively Septuagesima, 70th; Sexagesima, 60th; and Quinquagesima, 50th.

form.

According to the postulates of ordinary geometry, all constructions must be made by the help of the circle and straight line. Straight lines intersect each other in but one point; and a straight line and circle, or two circles, intersect in two points only. From the analytical point of view we may express these facts by saying that the determination of the intersection of two straight lines involves an equation of the first degree only; while that of the intersection of a straight line and a circle, or of two circles, is reducible to an equation of the second degree. But the trisection of an angle, or the duplication of the cube, requires for its accomplishment the solution of an equation of the third degree; or geometrically, requires the intersections of a straight line and a curve of the third degree, or of two conics, &c., all of which are excluded by the postulates of the science. If it were allowed that a parabola or ellipse could be described with a given focus and directrix, as it is allowed that a circle can be described with a given radius about a cube would be at once brought under the category of questions resolvable by pure geometry; so that the difficulty in these cases is one of mere restriction of the postulates of what is to be called geometry.

QUADRA'NGLE, an open square, or courtyard having four sides. Large public buildings-such as Somerset House and the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge-are usually planned in this QUA'DRANT (Lat. quadrans, a fourth part), literally the fourth part of a circle, or 90°; but signifying, in Astronomy, an instrument used for the determination of angular measurements. The quadrant consisted of a limb or arc of a circle equal to the fourth part of the whole circumference graduated into degrees and parts of degrees. The quadrant employed by Ptolemy was of stone, with one smooth and polished side, on which the grad-given center, the trisection of an angle and the duplication of the uations were made; the quadrant was firmly placed in a meridian plane, with one radius vertical, and the other horizontal.

It is very different in the case of the quadrature of the circle, which (the reader of the preceding article will see at once) means the determination of the area of a circle of given radius-literally, the assigning of the side of a square whose area shall be equal to that of the given circle.

Tycho Brahe, who has a right to be considered as the first great practical astonomer of modern times, fixed his quadrant on a wall, and employed it for the determination of meridian altitudes; he also adjusted others on vertical axes for the measurement of azimuths. Picart was the first who applied telescopic sights to this instrument. About this time the large mural quadrant (of 6 to 8 feet radius) began to be introduced into observatories. These quadrants were adjusted in the same way as the mural circle (see CIRCLE, The common herd of squarers of the circle,' which grows more MURAL). Various innate defects of the quadrant as an instru- numerous every day, and which includes many men of undoubted ment-such as the impossibility of securing exactness of the whole sanity, and even of the very highest business talents, rarely have arc, concentricity of the center of motion with the center of division, any idea of the nature of the problem they attempt to solve. It and perfect stability of the center-work-led to its being super-will, therefore, be our best course to show first of all what has seded by the repeating circle, otherwise called the Mural Circle. been done towards the solution of the problem; we shall then Hadley's Quadrant is more properly an octant, as its limb is only venture a few remarks as to what may yet be done, and in what the eighth part of a circle, though it measures an arc of 90°. Its direction philosophic squarers of the circle' must look for real principle is that of the SEXTANT (q. v.). advance.

In the first place, then, we observe that mechanical processes are by measuring the diameter of a circular disc of uniform material, utterly inadmissible. A fair approximation may, no doubt, be got and comparing the weight of the disc with that of a square porsible to execute any measurement to more than six places of significant figures; hence as will soon be shown, this process is at best but a rude approximation. The same is to be said of such obvious processes as wrapping a string round a cylindrical post of known diameter, and comparing its length with the diameter of the cylinder : only a rude approximation to the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter can thus be obtained.

QUDRATIC EQUATIONS. See EQUATIONS. QUA'DRATURE. This term is employed in Mathematics to signify the process of determining the area of a surface. Its derivation sufficiently indicates its nature-i. e., it consists in de-tion of the same material of given side. But it is almost impostermining a square (the simplest measure of surface) whose area is equal to that of the assigned surface. In many cases, of which the Triangle (q. v.), the Parabola (q. v.), and the Cycloid (q. v.) are perhaps the simplest, the area is easily assigned in terms of some simple unit. Thus, the area of a triangle is half that of the rectangle with the same base and height; that of any parabolic segment is two-thirds of the corresponding triangle, whose sides are the chord and the tangents at its extremities; that of the cycloid three times that of its generating circle, &c.

The term is also applied in a special sense in cases in which an area or other quantity is expressed by an integral, whose value cannot be determined exactly; and it then means the process of approximation by which the value of the integral can be gradually arrived at.

Before entering on the history of the problem, it must be reis half the rectangle under its radius and circumference (see marked that the Greek geometers knew that the area of a circle CIRCLE), so that the determination of the length of the circumference of a circle of given radius is precisely the same problem as that of the quadrature of the circle.

All the practical rules for approximating to the areas of curvi-history of the question, we remark that Archimedes proved that linear figures and the volumes of various solids-such as occur in land-measuring, gauging, engineering, &c.-are, in this sense, cases of quadrature, except in those very special cases in which an area or a volume can be assigned exactly as a finite function of its dimensions. See MENSURATION.

QUADRATURE OF THE CIRCLE. This is one of the grand problems of antiquity, which unsolved and probably unsolvable, continue to occupy even in the present day the minds of many curious speculators. The trisection of an angle, the duplication | of the cube, and the perpetual motion have found, in every age of the world since geometry and physics were thought of, their hosts of patient devotees. The physical question involved in the Perpetual Motion (q. v.) is treated of under that head; and we shali now take the opportunity of noticing the mathematical ques

Confining ourselves strictly to the best ascertained steps in the the ratio of the diameter to the circumference is greater than 1 to 34, and less than 18 to 3. The difference between these two extreme limits is less than the Too of the whole ratio. Archimedes's process depends upon the obvious truth, that the circumference of an inscribed polygon is less, while that of a circumscribed polygon is greater, than that of the circle. His calulations were extended to regular polygons of 96 sides.

Little more seems to have been done by mathematicians till the end of the 16th c., when P. Métius gave the expression for the ratio of the circumference to the diameter as the fraction, which, in decimals, is true to the seventh significant figure inclusive. Curiously enough, it happens that this is one of the convergent fractions which express in the lowest possible terms the best approximations to the required number. Métius seems

502

QUADRIENNIUM UTILE-QUADRILLE.

to have employed, with the aid of far superior arithmetical notation, a process similar to that of Archimedes.

Vieta shortly afterwards gave the ratio in a form true to the tenth decimal place, and was the first to give, though of course in infinite terms, an exact formula. Designating, as is usual in mathematical works, the ratio of the circumference to the diameter by π, Vieta's formula is

2 = ↓ √ ] × √↓ + } √ ↓ × N} + b√} + b√}× &c

Shortly afterwards, Adrianus Romanus, by calculating the length of the side of an equilateral inscribed polygon of 1073741824

formula has been employed to show that not only, but its square, is incommensurable.

Perhaps the neatest of all the formulas which have been given for the quadrature of the circle, is that of James Gregory for the arc in terms of its tangent—namely,

0 = tan. tan. 30+ tan. " - &c. This was appropriated by Leibnitz, and formed perhaps the first of that audacious series of peculations from English mathematicians which have for ever dishonored the name of a man of real genius.

If we notice that, by ordinary trigonometry, the arc whose tanfalls short of four times the arc

easily calculate

π

π

sides, determined the value of 7 to 16 significant figures; and gent is unity (the arc of 45° or) 4' Ludolph von Ceulen, his contemporary, by calculating that of the whose tangent is by an angle whose tangent is, we may polygon of 36893488147419103232 sides, arrived (correctly) at 36 significant figures. It is scarcely possible to give, in the present day, an idea of the enormous labor which this mode of procedure entails even when only 8 or 10 figures are sought; and when we consider that Ludolph was ignorant of logarithms, we wonder that a lifetime sufficed for the attainment of such a result by the method he employed.

1

The value of a was thus determined to 3 x 105 of its amount, a fraction of which, after Montucla, we shall attempt to give an idea, thus: Suppose a circle whose radius is the distance of the nearest fixed star (250,000 times the earth's distance from the sun), the error in calculating its circumference by Ludolph's result would be so excessively small a fraction of the diameter of a human hair as to be utterly invisible, not merely under the most powerful microscope yet made; but under any which future generations may be able to construct.

4

to any required number of decimal places by calculating from Gregory's formula the values of the arcs corresponding to and as tangents. And it is, in fact, by a slight modification of this process (which was originally devised by Machin), that, has been obtained, by independent calculators, to 600 decimal places.

It is not yet proved, and it may not be true, that the area or circumference of a circle cannot be expressed in finite terms; if it can be, these must (of course) contain irrational quantities. The integral calculus gives, among hosts of others, the following very simple expression in terms of a definite integral:

0

These results were, as we have pointed out, all derived by common arithmetical operations, based on the obvious truth that the Now it very often happens that the value of a definite integral circumference of a circle is greater than that of any inscribed, and less than that of any circumscribed polygon. They involve can be assigned, when that of the general integral cannot; and it none of those more subtle ideas connected with Limits, Infinites-is not impossible, so far as is yet known, that the above integral imals, or Differentials, which seem to render more recent results may be expressed in some such form as √x + √y,

suspected by modern squarers.' If one of that unhappy body

would only consider this simple fact, he could hardly have the where and y are irrational numbers. Such an expression, presumption to publish his 3.125, or whatever it may be, as the if discovered, would undoubtedly be hailed as a solution of the accurate value of a quantity which by common arithmetical proc-grand problem. esses, founded on an obvious geometrical truth, was several centuries ago shown to be greater than

and less than

3.14159265358979323846264338327950288,

3.14159265358979323846264338327950289.

We now know, by far simpler processes, its exact value to more than 600 places of decimals; but the above result of Von Ceulen is much more than sufficient for any possible practical application even in the most delicate calculations in astronomy.

Snellius, Huyghens, Gregory de Saint Vincent, and others, suggested simplifications of the polygon process, which are in reality some of the approximate expressions derived from modern trigonometry. In 1668 the celebrated James Gregory gave a demonstration of the impossibility of effecting exactly the quadrature of the circle, which, although objected to by Huyghens, is now received as quite satisfactory.

We may merely advert to the speculations of Fermat, Roberval, Cavalleri, Wallis, Newton, and others as to quadrature in general -their most valuable result was the invention of the Differential and Integral Calculus by Newton, under the name of Fluxions and Fluents. Wallis, however, by an ingenious process of interpolation, showed that

4 3.3.5.5.7.7.9.9.11. &c. which is interesting, as being the first recorded example of the determination, in a finite form, of the value of the ratio of two infinite products.

Lord Brouncker, being consulted by Wallis as to the value of the above expression, put it in the form of an infinite continued fraction, thus:

But this, we need hardly say, is not the species of solution attempted by 'squarers.' We could easily, from our own experi ence alone, give numerous instances of their helpless absurdities, but we spare the reader, and refer him, for further information on this painful yet ridiculous subject, to Prof. De Morgan's Budget of Paradoxes; and to the very interesting work of Montucla, Histoire des Recherches sur la Quadrature du Cercle.

QUADRIENNIUM U'TILÉ, in Scotch Law, means the four years after majority during which a person is entitled to reduce or set aside any deed made to his prejudice during minority. This protection was also given by the Roman law to minors, to been taken of their inexperience during minority. The injury or enable them to neutralize any unfair advantage that may have lesion must have been caused, not by an accident, but by the im prudence or negligence, of themselves or of their curators. The tains 25, after which it is too late to seek restitution. See INproceeding, therefore, must be commenced before the minor at

FANT.

QUADRIGA. See CHARIOT.

QUADRILATERAL, in Military Language, is an expression designating a combination of four fortresses, not necessarily connected together, but mutually supporting each other; and from the fact that if one be attacked, the garrisons of the others, unless carefully observed, will harass the besiegers, rendering it necessary that a very large army should be employed to turn the combined position. As a remarkable instance, and a very powerful one, may be cited the Venetian Quadrilateral (Austrian till 1866), comprising the four strong posts of Mantua, Verona, Peschiera, and Legnago. These form a sort of outwork to the bastion which the southern mountains of the Tyrol constitute, and divide the north plain of the Po into two sections by a most powerful barrier. Napoleon III., in 1859, even after the victories of Magenta and Solferino, hesitated to attack this quadrilateral.

QUADRI'LLE, a dance of French origin, consisting of consecutive dance movements, generally five in number, danced by couples, or sets of couples, opposite to, and at right angles to each other. The name seems to be derived from its having been originally danced by four couples.

QUADRILLE is a card game, which, as its name denotes, is played by four persons. The number of cards employed is forty, the tens, nines, and eights being discarded from the pack. The rank and order of the cards in each suit vary according as they This are or are not trumps, and are different in the black and red suits.

QUADRIVIUM-QUAIL.

503

The ace of spades, whatever suit be trumps, is always the highest QUA'DRUPEDS (Lat. four-footed), a term employed both poputrump, and is called spadille; the ace of clubs is always the third larly and by scientific writers to designate four-footed animals. highest trump, and is known as basto; while the second highest It is not, however, the name of a class or order in systems of trump, or manille, is the deuce of spades or clubs, or the seven of zoology. Popularly, it is almost always limited to those Mamhearts or diamonds, according to the suit which is trumps, it being malia which have four limbs well developed and formed for walkalways of the trump suit. When the black suits are not trumps, ing, and is scarcely ever applied to the Cetacea, and rarely even the black cards rank as in whist; and when they are trumps, the to Seals or to the Quadrumana (q. v.). The full development of order is the same, with the exception, as above mentioned, of the the limbs, with their termination in feet properly so called, thus deuce, which then (in the trump suit only) becomes manille, the appears to be by no means one of the most important characters deuce of the black suit which is not trumps retaining its position as by which groups of animals are distinguished; and this further the lowest card. When the red suits are not trumps, the order of appears when the same character is found again in great perfecrank is as follows: King, queen, knave, ace, deuce, three, four, tion, in a lower class of vertebrate animals-in Chelonian and five, six, seven; but when they are trumps, the ace (of the trump Saurian Reptiles, as tortoises and lizards. But the four-limbed suit only) is raised to the position of the fourth highest trump, type prevails among vertebrate animals, from man downwards; under the name of ponto or punto, and the seven (of the trump suit so that even in serpents, in which it is least notable, traces of it only) becomes, as previously stated, manille. A little considera- appear on anatomical examination, as in the case of that class of tion will show, that when the black suits are trumps, the number large serpents named Boas (see BOA); and there are many other of trump cards is eleven, and twelve when a red suit is trumps. creatures which form connecting links as to this character between The three highest trumps, spadille, manille, and basto, are serpents and those reptiles-as crocodiles and lizards-which pos called matadores, and the player who possesses one of them can, sess it in greatest perfection. The homology of certain fins of fishes if he have no other trumps in his hand, decline to follow suit if with the limbs of quadrupeds is noticed in the article FISHES. trumps are led, provided the trump led is not a matadore of value No approach to the four-limbed type is to be found among Inversuperior to his own. After the cards have been shuffled, cut and tebrate animals. dealt, the elder hand, on looking at his cards, may, if his hand be weak, decline to play (or pass); the next player may do the same, and so on all round; in which case the elder hand must commence, naming the suit which he wishes to be trumps, and the cards are laid, and tricks taken, as in ordinary card games. If a player does not pass, but commences the game by naming trumps and playing a card, he must himself make six tricks to win; and if he succeeds he obtains the whole of the winnings; but if he loses, he pays the whole of the losses. If he commences the game by asking leave-i. e., to have a partner-which is done by calling a king, the player who holds the king of the suit led must play it when his turn arrives; and he who asked leave, or l'hombre (in England generally called ombre), along with him who had the king called, or the friend, are from this time partners in the game, and divide either the gains or the losses, as the case may be. The ombre and the friend win the game if they make six tricks between them. This game is complicated by a number of conditions, which, under certain circumstances, modify the ordinary mode of playing.

A modification of this game, under the name of preference, is much in vogue in Lancashire; and in this country, in the beginning of last century, and on the continent-especially in France -the game of l'hombre, which is nothing more than quadrille played by three persons, was exceedingly fashionable. L'hombre is now quite obsolete, but a most accurate description of the mode in which it was played will be found in Pope's Rape of the Lock. L'hombre was the immediate predecessor of quadrille in popular

favor.

QUADRI VIUM (Lat. quatuor, four, and via, a road), the name given, in the language of the schools of the West, to the higher course of the medieval studies, from its consisting of four branches, as the lower course for an analogous reason was called TRIVIUM (q. v.), or 'Three Roads.' The quadrivium consisted of arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy. It would carry us beyond our limits to detail the nature and extent of each of these branches as pursued in the medieval schools. The reader will find much curious and new matter on all questions of this nature in the volumes of the works of Roger Bacon, lately edited in the series issued under authority of the Master of the Rolls, as also in the Introduction prefixed to the volumes.

QUÆ STOR (Lat. contr. from quæsitor, a searcher or investigator, from quæro, to seek or search into) was anciently the title of a class of Roman magistrates, reaching as far back, according to all accounts, as the period of the kings. The oldest quæstors were the quastores parricidii (trackers of murder,' ultimately public accusers), who were two in number. Their office was to conduct the prosecution of persons accused of murder, and to execute the sentence that might be pronounced. They ceased to exist as early as 366 B.C., when their functions were transferred to the Triumviri Capitales. But a far more important though later magistracy was the quastores classici, to whom was intrusted the charge of the public treasury. The exact date of their institution cannot be ascertained, but it was subsequent to the expulsion of the kings. They appear to have derived the epithet of classici from their having been originally elected by the centuries. At first they were only two in number, but in 421 B.C, two more were added. Shortly after the breaking out of the first Punic War, the number was increased to eight; and as province after province was added to the Roman Republic, they amounted, in the time of Sulla, to twenty, and in the time of Cæsar to forty. On its first institution the quæstorship (quæstura) was open only to patricians; but after 421 B.C., plebeians also became eligible.

QUA'GGA (Equus—or Asinus-Quagga), an animal of the family Equida (q. v.), a native of the southern parts of Africa, rather smaller than the Zebra (q. v.), with the hinder parts higher, and the ears shorter; the head, mane, neck, and shoulders blackishbrown, banded with white; similar bands towards the rump, gradually becoming less distinct; a black line running along the spine. The Q. receives its name from its voice, which somewhat resembles the barking of a dog. It is more easily domesticated than the zebra, and a curricle drawn by quaggas has been seen in Hyde Park. In its wild state it does not associate with the zebra, although inhabiting the same plains. Hybrids, or mules, have been produced between the horse and quagga.

QUAIL (Coturnix), a genus of gallinaceous birds of the family Tetraonida, nearly allied to partridges, but having a more slender bill, a shorter tail, longer wings, no spur, and no red space above the eye. The first and second quills of the wing are about as long as the third, which is the longest in the more rounded wing of the partridges. Quails, therefore, far excel partridges in their power of flight. The tail is very short. They never perch on trees, but always alight on the ground. They are among the smallest of gallinaceous birds.

QUADRU'MANA (Lat. four-handed), in the zoological system of Cuvier an order of Mammalia, which he places next after Bimana (q. v.)., and which contains the animals most nearly re- The COMMON Q. (C. vulgaris or C. dactylisonans) is found in most sembling man in their form and anatomical characters-viz., the parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa. In India and other warm monkey and lemur families. The order Q., with the limits as- countries, it is a permanent resident; but in many countries it is signed to it by Cuvier, is very generally received by naturalists. a bird of passage; and thus it visits the north of Europe, and at The name is derived from a character, in which one most obvious certain seasons appears in vast multitudes on the coasts and difference from man is, that the extremities of all the four limbs islands of the Mediterranean, so that quails are there taken in are hands, or formed for grasping, and not merely those of the hundreds of thousands in their northern and southern migrations. anterior ones; these, indeed, being in many of the monkeys less The Q. is not plentiful at any season in any part of Britain; but perfect hands than the hinder ones. through the want or rudi- sometimes appears even in the northern parts of Scotland, and imentary character of the thumb. None of the Q. are naturally more frequently in the south of England, where it is sometimes adapted for an erect posture. The differences between man and seen even in winter. There is reason to believe that the food the apes which most nearly approach him in form, are pointed miraculously supplied to the Israelites in the wilderness was this out in the articles MONKEY, CHIMPANZEE, GORILLA, and very species of bird, to which the name Selav, used in the Mosaic ORANG. The Q. resemble man in their dentition more than any narrative, seems to belong.-The Q. is fully 7 inches in entire other animals. Their other digestive organs also exhibit a gen-length; of a brown color, streaked with different shades, and the eral similarity to those of man. The similarity is further ap-wings mottled with light-brown; the throat white, with darkparent in the brain and in the reproductive organs; but in the brown bands in the male, and a black patch beneath the white, Lemurida, a gradual departure from the human form and char- the lower parts yellowish-white. The Q. is polygamous. The acters is manifested, with an approach to the ordinary quadruped nest is a mere hole in the ground, with 7 to 12 eggs. The Q. is type. highly esteemed for the table. Great numbers of quails are

QUAKERS-QUAQUAVERSAL.

of the natural order Liliacea, nearly allied to squills and hya-ilton's Discussions; Spencer Baynes's New Analytic of Logical cinths. It is a North American plant, abounding on the great Forms; De Morgan's Formal Logic; Mill's Logic, under the Sylloprairies west of the Mississippi. The roasted bulbs are agreeable gism; and his Examination of Sir W. Hamilton's Philosophy.

QUANG-NAM, KUANG-NAM, or TURON, a town of Anam, QUAQUAVE'RSAL (Lat. turning every way), a term applied about 75 miles south-east-by-east from Hué (q. v.), or Phu-thuan- in Geology to the dip of the Stratified rocks when arranged in thien, the capital of Anam. It is situated near the head of a beauti-dome-shaped elevations, or basin-shaped depressions, whereby ful gulf, and is a place of considerable trade. the beds have an inclination on all sides to one point, that point