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138. 9d.; of Venice 16s. 24d.; of Florence and Parma 168. 104d. ; and the old coin of Piedmont = £1, 28. 7 d., or 24 old liras. These will, however, in all probability, be soon superseded by the new pistole of 20 liras, or francs, which is equivalent to 168. sterling. Gold coins of this name are current in Hesse-Cassel, Switzerland, Brunswick, and Hamburg, but are in most cases merely convenient multiples of the ordinary thaler and gulden. PI'SUM. See PEA.

PIT, in Gardening, is an excavation in the ground, intended to be covered by a Frame (q. v.), and to afford protection to tender plants in winter, or for the forcing of vegetables, fruits, &c. Pits are often walled on all sides, although, in many cottage gardens, excellent use is made of pits which are mere excavations. The walls are often raised above the ground, particularly the back wall, the more readily to give slope to the glazed frame. A pit in which no artificial heat is supplied, is called a cold pit; but when forcing is intended, flued pits are often used. Artificial heat is sometimes also given by means of fermenting matter. The ventilation of pits, as much as the weather will permit, is of the greatest importance.

PITA-HEMP, one of the names of the Agave or

Aloe fibre. See AGAVE.

PITAKA (literally, 'basket') is, with the Buddhists, a term denoting a division of their sacred literature, and occurs especially in combination with tri, three;' tripitaka meaning the three great divisions of their canonical works, the Vinaya (discipline), Abhidharma (metaphysics), and Sutra (aphorisms in prose), and collectively, therefore, the whole Buddhistic code. The term 'basket' was applied to these divisions, because the palm-leaves on which these works were written were kept in baskets, which thus became a part of the professional utensils of a Bhikshu, or religious mendicant. PITCAIRN ISLAND, a solitary island in the Pacific Ocean, lying at the south-eastern corner of the great Polynesian Archipelago, in lat. 25° 3' 6" S., and long. 130° 6' W. Its length (24 miles) is about twice its breadth, and the total content is approximately 1 square miles; so that, except from its being the only station (with the exception of the Gambier Islands) between the South American coast and Otaheite at which fresh water can be procured, it would be too insignificant to deserve notice, were it not for the manner in which it was colonised. The island is wholly surrounded by rocks; it has no harbour, and its soil is not very fertile. It was occupied in 1790 by the mutineers of the Bounty (see BLIGH, WILLIAM), who, after touching at Toobonai, sailed for Tahiti, where they remained for some time. Christian, the leader of the mutineers, however, fearing pursuit, hastened their departure; and after leaving a number of their comrades who preferred to stay on the island, they brought off with them 18 natives, and sailed eastward, reaching P. I., where they took up their residence, and burned the Bounty. They numbered then 9 British sailors-for 16 of the sailors had preferred to remain at Tahiti, and of these, 14 were subsequently captured, and (September 1792) three of them executed-and 6 Tahitian men, with 12 women. It was impossible for concord to subsist in a band of such desperate character; and, in the course of the next ten years, all the Tahitian men, all the sailors, with the exception of Alexander Smith (who subsequently changed his name to John Adams), and several of the women, had died by violence or disease. From the time of their leaving Tahiti, nothing had been heard of them, and their fate was only known when an American, Captain

Folger, touched at P. I. in 180S, and on his return, reported his discovery to the British government; but no steps appear to have been taken by the latter. On September 17, 1814, a British vessel, the Britain, called at the island, and found old Adams still alive, commanding the respect and admiration of the whole little colony, by his exemplary conduct and fatherly care of them. Solitude had wrought a powerful change in Adams; and his endeavours to instil into the young minds of his old companions' descendants sense of religion, had been crowned with complete success, for a more virtuous, amiable, and religious community than these islanders, had never been and 1830, and the reports transmitted concerning seen. They were visited by British vessels in 1825 them were fully corroborative of the previous accounts; but, in 1831, their numbers (87) had become too great for the island, and at their own request, they were transported to Tahiti, in the Lucy Ann, by the British government. But, friends and relatives, they chartered a vessel, disgusted at the immorality of their Tahitian defraying the cost of it in great part with the copper bolts of the Bounty, and most of them returned to P. I. at the end of nine months. 1839, being visited by Captain Elliot of H.M.S. Fly, they besought to be taken under the protection of Britain, on account of the annoyances to which they had been subjected by the lawless crews of some whale-ships which had called at the island; and, accordingly, Captain Elliot took possession of it in the name of Her Majesty, gave them a Union Jack, and recognised their self-elected magistrate as the responsible governor. He also drew up for them a code of laws, some of which are amusing from the subjects of which they treat, but the code was of great use to the simple islanders. From this time, they were frequently visited by European ships; and, in 1855, finding their numbers again too great for the island, they petitioned government to grant them the much more productive Norfolk Island, to which they were accordingly removed in 1856. In 1859, however, two families, numbering in all 17, returned to P. I., reducing the number of those left on Norfolk Island to 202. From their frequent intercourse with Europeans, the Pitcairn Islanders have, while still retaining their virtuous simplicity of character and cheerful hospitable disposition, acquired the manners and polish of civilised life, with its education and taste. They are passionately fond of music and dancing, the latter evidently a legacy from their maternal ancestry. The men are engaged in whaling and herding cattle, or in cultivating their gardens and plantations; while the women (who seem to be the more industrious class) attend to their families, manage the dairies, and take an occasional part in field-labour.

P. I. was first discovered by Carteret in 1767, and was named by him after one of his officers; but it was never visited by Europeans till taken possession of by the mutineers, though the latter found satisfactory indications of its having previously been occupied for a considerable period by savages, probably from the neighbouring islands.

PITCH. The common kind of pitch is the black residue which remains after distilling wood-tar. See TAR. It is made extensively in Russia, Norway, and North America. It is a most useful material for protecting wood from the action of water, hence it is used for calking the seams, and coating the outsides of ships and boats; it is also applied to the inside of water-casks, and many similar uses. A variety of pitch is now obtained from the distillation of coal-tar, and another from bone-tar: the latter is said to be nearly equal in

value to that from wood, but coal-pitch wants the toughness which is one of the more valuable qualities of wood-pitch. It is, however, much used in making artificial asphalt for building and paving purposes; and for the black varnish used for coating iron-work to keep it from rusting. Pitch is solid at the ordinary temperature of our climate, but softens and melts with a small accossion of heat.

PITCH, BURGUNDY. See BURGUNDY PITCH.

PITCH, the degree of acuteness of musical sounds. A musical sound is produced by a series of vibrations recurring on the ear at precisely equal intervals; the greater the number of vibrais the pitch. In stringed instruments, the pitch tions in a given time, the more acute or higher is dependent on the length, the thickness, and the degree of tension of the strings; the shorter and thinner a string is, and the greater its tension, the higher is the pitch of the note. In wind instruments, where the notes are produced by the vibration of a column of air, as in the mouth-pipes of an organ, the pitch is dependent on the length of the column set in motion; the shorter the column of air, the higher the pitch becomes.

The pitch of musical instruments is adjusted by means of a tuning-fork, consisting of two prongs springing out of a handle, so adjusted as to length that, when struck, a particular note is produced, that note being C

in Britain, and A

in Germany. It is obviously important to have a recognised standard of pitch, by which instruments and voices are to be regulated: but there is, unfortunately, not the uniformity that might be desired in the pitch in actual use. For a long time prior to 1859, concert-pitch had been gradually rising, to the detriment of the voices of public singers. The C tuning-fork, in use in 1699, made 489 vibrations per second, while in 1859, the number of vibrations had increased to 538. Mr Hullah, in 1842, in the numerous classes instituted by him under the sanction of the Committee of Council on Education, found it necessary to secure a uniform standard of pitch, and adopted 512, which has an especial convenience as being a power of 2. The French Imperial government, in 1858, fixed on 522. In 1859, a Committee of the Society of Arts was appointed to consider the subject of a uniform musical pitch. Their deliberations lasted 12 months. Sir John Herschel, in a letter to the Committee, strongly recommended the number 512. It was agreed on all hands that the then existing opera-pitch of 546 was too high and painful to the singers of soprano music. The instrumental performers stated that they could lower the pitch to 528, but if they had to lower it to 512, some of them would have to purchase new instruments; and, in consequence apparently of their representation, the Committee reported in favour of 528.

PI'TCHBLENDE, a mineral which is essentially Oxide of Uranium (q. v.), with slight mixtures of other substances. Its colour is grayish-black or brownish-black. It is infusible before the blowpipe, without the addition of borax, with which it fuses into a dull yellow glass.

PITCHER PLANT. See NEPENTHES. PITCHSTONE, a name sometimes given to a variety of common Opal (q. v.), brown, black, gray, red, or of mixed colours; the lustre more resinous than in opal, and the fracture less perfectly conchoidal. It occurs in several localities in the British Islands, in Saxony, &c.-The same name is given to another mineral (Ger. Pechstein), a variety

of Felspar (q. v.), occurring as a rock in dikes which traverse strata or in overlying masses; compact, slaty, or in concentric slaty concretions. It exhibits great variety of colour, and has a somewhat resinous appearance. It often contains numerous imbedded crystals of felspar, and is then called P. porphyry.

PITCHURIM BEANS, or SASSAFRAS NUTS, an occasional article of importation from South America, are the seed-lobes of Nectandra Puchury, a tree of the same genus with the Greenheart (q. v.), growing on the banks of the Rio Negro and elsewhere in the rich alluvial parts of the basin of the Amazon. They are about an inch and a half long, chocolate, as a substitute for vanilla. They are and half an inch broad. They are much in request among chocolate manufacturers for flavouring sometimes called Wild Nutmegs, because of a Sassafras Nuts is also due to the flavour, which resemblance to nutmeg in flavour. The name approaches that of Sassafras bark; and the tree belongs to the same natural order with the Sassa

fras tree.

PITH (Medulla), the light cellular substance which occupies the centre of the stem and branches in Exogenous Plants (q. v.). In the earliest stage of a young stem or branch, it is entirely composed of pith and bark, by which alone, therefore, young buds are nourished; the vascular bundles or woody fibre appearing afterwards, and in trees and shrubs, generally increasing, so as to constitute the greater part of the substance of the stem and branches, whilst the pith is ultimately reduced to a very small column in the centre. The pith, however, exists even in the most mature woody stem, and maintains its connection with the bark by means of Medullary Rays, analogous in their character to the pith itself, and which exist even in the most compact wood, although much compressed by the woody layers, and in a transverse section appearing as mere lines. The medullary rays convey to the central parts of the stem the secretions of the bark necessary for their nourishment. P. is in general entirely composed of cellular tissue; vessels occurring in it only in a few plants. Its cells diminish in size from the centre towards the circumference. a few plants, it exhibits cavities which have a regular arrangement; in many herbaceous plants of rank growth, large irregular cavities occur in it. The pith is immediately surrounded by a thin vascular layer called the Medullary Sheath, consisting chiefly of spiral vessels, which continue to exercise their functions during the life of the plant. PITHE’CIA. See SAKI. PITHECUS. See ORANG.

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PITON BARK. See CARIBBEE BARK.

In

PI'TR'I (a Sanscrit word literally meaning father Latin pater, in the plural Pitaras, but in Eng lish translations from the Sanscrit usually Anglicised to Pitris), a name which, in a general sense, means the deceased ancestors of a man, but in the denotes an order of divine beings inhabiting celes special sense in which it occurs in Hindu mythology tial regions of their own, and receiving into their funeral rites (see S'RADDHA) have been duly per. society the spirits of those mortals for whom the formed. They include, therefore, collectively the manes of the deceased ancestors; but the principal members of this order are beings of a different nature and origin. According to Manu, they were the sons of Marfchi, Atri, Angiras, and the other R'ishis or saints produced by Manu, the son of Brahmâ; and from them issued the gods, demons, and men. According to several Purânas (q. v.), however, the first Pitr'is were the sons of the gods; and to reconcile this discrepancy, a legend relates

favourite of the sovereign, of the parliament, and of the nation; and from this date, the life of P. becomes the history of England and of the world. For seventeen eventful years, he held his great 'position without a break. In 1784, he established a new constitution for the East India Company. In 1786, he carried through a commercial treaty with France on liberal principles. In the same year, he established a new sinking fund; a scheme which experience has shewn to be wrong in principle, though it was long viewed with favour by the nation. To exertions which were now begun for the abolition of the slave-trade, he gave the help of his eloquence and power. In 1788-1789, he maintained against Fox the right of parliament to supply the temporary defect of royal authority occasioned by the incapacity of the king. The year 1793 saw the beginning of the great war with France. Authorities differ as to the cause. It is, however, certain that P.'s military administration was eminently unsuccessful. But no disaster could daunt his spirit. When a new French victory, a rebellion in Ireland, a mutiny in the fleet, and a panic in the city had spread dismay through the nation, P. from his place in parliament poured forth the language of inextinguishable hope and inflexible resolution. Disaster abroad was regularly followed by triumph at home, until at last he had no longer an opposition to encounter. In 1799, he effected the union with Ireland. It was part of his scheme to relieve the Roman Catholic laity from civil disabilities, and to grant a public maintenance to their clergy; but the obstinacy of the king frustrated this design. Chagrined by this failure, P. resigned office in 1801. He was succeeded by Mr Addington, to whom for a while he gave his support. In 1804, he returned again to the head of the treasury, which position he continued to hold till his death on 23d January 1806. This event was doubtless hastened by the stupendous success of Napoleon. The peculiar look which | he wore during the last days of his life was pathetically termed by Wilberforce the Austerlitz look.' The impeachment also of his friend, Lord Melville, is supposed greatly to have hastened his end. It gave him, he said in parliament, a deep pang. His voice quivered as he uttered the word; and it seemed as if the man of iron were about to shed tears. He was,' says Macaulay, a minister of great talents, honest intentions, and liberal opinions, but unequal to surprising and terrible emergencies, and liable in such emergencies to err grievously, both on the side of weakness and on the side of violence.' But what man ever lived, we may ask, who, placed in such circumstances as P., would not often have greatly erred? His policy was liberal beyond his age, at least he wished it to be so, although he was often obliged to yield to the prejudices of his sovereign. He resigned office because he could not carry Catholic emancipation. He laid before the king unanswerable reasons for abolishing the Test Act. He was more deeply imbued with the doctrines of free-trade than either Fox or Grey. It cannot indeed be denied that he was addicted to port-wine, and that he died overwhelmed with debts; parliament voting £40,000 to his creditors. High as his character stands, it would have stood even higher had he united the virtue of frugality to that of disinterestedness. See Life of Pitt by Lord Stanhope (Lond. 1861); also Lord Macaulay's Biographies (Edin. 1860). In the former work, vol. ii., p. 185, will be found a valuable criticism on Macaulay's

memoir.

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PITTACUS, one of the 'Seven Wise Men' of ancient Greece, was born at Mitylene, in the island of Leshos, about the middle of the 7th c. B.C. The

incidents of his life do not perhaps rest on a very secure historical basis, but he is by no means to be regarded as a merely traditionary personage. We may feel quite certain that his career and character were substantially what later history represents them. About 612 B. C., in conjunction with the brothers of Alcæus the poet, he overthrew the tyrant' Melanchrus, and put him to death. He next figures in the contest between the Lesbians and the Athenians for the possession of Sigeum in the Troad, and displayed as much valour on the battle-field as Alceus did cowardice. His townsmen, the Mitylenæans, were so pleased with his deeds of prowess, that they gave him a portion of the city-territory, which he dedicated to sacred uses, and which was known long after as the 'Pittaceian land.' Meanwhile, the civic struggles did not cease; the democratic party, however, roughly represented by a series of popular tyrants,' were in the ascendant, and the oligarchic aristocrats, at the head of whom was Alcaus, were finally banished. P. was subsequently chosen dictator, 589 B. C., to prevent the turbulent exiles from returning to Mitylene, and ruled absolutely with great success for ten years, after which he voluntarily resigned his power, and withdrew into honoured retirement. He died in 569 B. C. Many of the anecdotes preserved by tradition concerning P. are probably apocryphal; but they all attribute to him the same characteristics-great moral sagacity, a contempt of outward pomp, and a plain practical understanding. His favourite maxim, Gnōthi Kairòn (Know the fitting moment'), may be recommended to all statesmen and politicians. To P. is also ascribed the saying which has so often been verified in actual history, Chalepòn esthlòn emmenai ('It is a misfortune to be eminent'). Of his 600 didactic verses, only four are extant, and these prove that he was strongly impressed with the falsehood and insincerity of men. See Schneidewin's Delectus Poesis Græcorum Elegiacæ, &c. (Gott. 1839.)

PITTSBURG, including several boroughs adjoining, is the second city of Pennsylvania, situated at the confluence of the Alleghany and Monongahela rivers, and the head of the Ohio, lat. 40° 26′ 34′′ N., long. 80° 2′ 38′′ W. It is 750 feet above the sea, and in the midst of some of the richest deposits of coal and iron in America, which have given direction to its industries. From the mines upwards of 140,000,000 bushels of coal were raised in 1870, some of which was exported, while an immense amount was used in her 60 iron foundries, which consumed 400,000 tons of iron, 60,000 tons of which were made in the furnaces of Pittsburg. The city has 42 iron and steel mills, 582 puddling furnaces, 7 large steel works, 60 glass factories, employing 5000 hands, 20 brass foundries, 2 copper smelting and rolling mills, 58 petroleum refineries, 8 white lead factories, 6 cotton mills, 6 flour mills, with a total of 1500 manufacturing establishments of all kinds, and a manufacturing and commercial business estimated, in 1870, at $170,000,000. The manufacturing industries of P. are on a vast scale; 475 of her factories in daily operation would extend 35 miles in a direct line. At one of the establishments for the manufacture of axes, saws, &c. (that of Lippincott and Bakewell), 250 men are employed, and axes produced at the rate of 1000 daily throughout the year. The city contains 165 churches, 191 public school-houses, with 7129 children in attendance; 1 university, 3 theological seminaries, a penitentiary, and house of refuge; 54 banks, and 2500 commission houses which are not manufactories. P. is very healthy, but the imperfect combustion of her bituminous coal filling the air with smoke, &c., renders it disagreeable, and entitled to the sobriquet of the Smoky City.' It is also frequently termed the Iron City' and the 'Birmingham of America.'