woollen. The ancients attributed the invention of purple to the Phoenicians. The story of its having been discovered by a dog's biting a purple fish, and thus staining his mouth, is well known. The purple fish was found not only on the Phonician coasts, but in all other parts of the Mediterranean, so that the use of it in dyeing came to be common with other nations; but the Phoenicians excelled in the beauty and permanence of their coloring. The Tyrians excelled particularly in the bright red and violet shade. They dyed the finest wools of this color, usually twice, and then gave an artificial brilliancy to the stuff.

PURPLE GRACKLE. (See Blackbird.) PURPLE OF CASSIUS. (See Tin.) PURSE, among the Turks; the sum of $500, so called because the treasure in the seraglio is kept in leathern purses of this value.

PURSLANE (portulacea oleracea); a common and insignificant weed, said to have come originally from India, but now almost universally diffused through the civilized world. The stems divide from the base into several prostrate branches, which are clothed with sessile, smooth, and wedge-shaped leaves; the flowers are small, yellow, and axillary. The whole plant is succulent. Formerly it was cultivated as a pot-herb, for salads, garnishings and pickling, and it is still sometimes employed for those purposes.

PURSUIVANT. (See Poursuivant.) PUTEOLI; the ancient name for Pozzuoli. (See Naples.)

PUTNAM, Israel, a distinguished soldier in the French and English wars, and subsequently in that of the revolution, was born of English parents, at Salem, in the then province of Massachusetts, Jan. 7, 1718. Being intended for a farmer, he received only a common education. Ile had a strong mind, vigorous constitution, great bodily strength, enterprise and activity, excelled in athletic exercises, and, while a stripling, was ambitious of performing the full labor of manhood. He married very young, and removed, in 1739, to Pomfret, in Connecticut, where he had purchased a tract of land. During his residence there, his flocks and those of his neighbors being terribly thinned by a monstrous she-wolf, Putnam, with a few associates, traced the ferocious animal to a deep cavern in a rock. Into this be crept alone, with a torch in one hand and a musket in the other, and, at the utmost personal risk, destroyed the creature. When the war of 1755 broke out between

In

France and England, he was appointed, at the age of thirty-seven, commander of a company, enlisted the necessary number of recruits from the young men in his vicinity, and joined the army then commencing the campaign near Crown Point. His services as a partisan officer were unremitting and great, and caused him to be promoted, in 1757, to the rank of major, by the legislature of Connecticut. 1758, he fell into an Indian ambuscade, and was taken prisoner, when returning to Fort Edward from an expedition to watch the enemy's movements near Ticonderoga. The Indians were about to burn him to death, having already tied him to a tree and set fire to a circle of combustibles around him, when he was rescued by the interposition of their leader, Molang, a famous French partisan officer. He was then carried to Ticonderoga, where he underwent an examination before the marquis de Montcalm, who ordered him to Montreal. There he found several fellow prisoners, among whom was colonel Peter Schuyler, who immediately visited, and found him almost destitute of clothing, and dreadfully wounded and bruised. The colonel supplied him with money, and, having clothed himself in a decent garb, he was immediately treated with the respect due to his rank. An exchange of prisoners procured Putnam his liberty, He resumed his military duties, and, having previously been appointed a lieutenantcolonel, rendered especial service at the siege of Montreal by the British, in 1760. In 1762, after war had been declared between England and Spain, he accompanied the expedition, under lord Albemarle, against the Havana. In 1764, having been appointed colonel, he marched, at the head of a regiment, with general Bradstreet, against the savages of the western frontier. On his return from this expedition, which resulted in a treaty between the contending parties, he betook himself, once more, to a country life, filled several offices in his native town, and represented it in the general assembly. In 1770, he went, with general Lyman and some others, to explore a grant of land on the Mississippi. General Lyman, as we have already stated in our sketch of his life, formed an establishment and died there; but Putnam returned, after having made some improvements on his tract. When hostilities commenced between England and the colonies (April 18, 1775), Putnam received the intelligence as he was ploughing in the middle of a field; he left his plough there, unyoked his

team, and, without changing his clothes, set off for the scene of action. Finding the British shut up and closely invested with a sufficient force in Boston, he returned to Connecticut, levied a regiment under colonial authority, and marched to Cambridge. His colony now appointed him a major-general on the provincial staff, and congress soon after confirmed to him the same rank on the continental. About this time the British offered him the rank of a major-general in his majesty's army, with a pecuniary remuneration for his treason; but the temptation could not influence him. In the several preparatory operations for the battle of Bunker's hill, he took an active part. After the commencement of the retreat, at the battle of Bunker's hill, Putnam arrived on the field with a reinforcement, and performed every thing to be expected from a brave and experienced officer: the enemy pursued the retreating Americans to Winter hill, but Putnam halted there, and drove them back, under cover of their ships. On the evacuation of Boston (March 17, 1776), the greater part of the forces were despatched to New York, and Putnam was, some time after, sent thither to take upon him the command. After the disastrous action on Long Island, and general Washington's masterly retreat from thence, Putnam was nominated to the command of the right grand division of the army. He served some time in the vicinity of New York, and was sent to the western side of the Hudson, and, shortly after, to superintend the fortifications of Philadelphia. After the battles of Trenton and Princeton, he was posted at Princeton, where he continued till the ensuing spring, with a very inferior force, guarding a considerable extent of frontier, curtailing and harassing the enemy, without sustaining the least disaster. During his stay at Princeton, by attacking the foraging parties of the enemy and assemblages of the disaffected who infested his vicinity, he captured nearly a thousand prisoners. In the spring of 1777, he was appointed to the command of a separate army in the highlands of New York. There was no regular enemy in this neighborhood, but the country around was filled with tories, and a species of banditti, called cow-boys, who committed shocking depredations. Many of the tories clandestinely traversed the country, with messages from one British army to another, and even on recruiting expeditions for the royal service. One of them, a lieutenant in the new tory levies, 37

VOL. X.

was detected in the American camp, and reclaimed by governor Tryon, his commander, with threats of vengeance in case of his punishment. He received this laconic answer from general Putnam: "Sir, Nathan Palmer, a lieutenant in your king's service, was taken in my camp as a spy; he was tried as a spy; he was condemned as a spy; and you may rest assured, sir, he shall be hanged as a spy. . . P. S. Afternoon. He is hanged." After the capture of Fort Montgomery, Putnam selected West Point as the best calculated site for a fortress to protect the river. The reputation it afterwards attained evinced the judiciousness of this selection. After the battle of Monmouth, Putnam was posted, for the winter, at Reading, in Connecticut, that he might protect the country adjoining to the Sound, and the garrison at West Point. While he was on a visit to one of his outposts, governor Tryon advanced upon him with 1500 men. Putnam had with him but 150 men and two field-pieces, with which he kept the enemy at bay some time. At length, seeing the enemy preparing to charge, he ordered his men to retire to a swamp, while he plunged down a precipice so steep as to have artificial steps, nearly one hundred in number, for the use of foot passengers. The enemy's dragoons stopped short, afraid to venture, although within a sword's length of him. While they went round the brow of the hill to gain the valley, he raised a force sufficiently strong to pursue Tryon on his retreat. In the campaign of 1779, he commanded the Maryland line, stationed near West Point. In the autumn of this year, the American army retired into winter quarters, at Morristown, and Putnam accompanied his family into Connecticut for a few weeks. At the commencement of his journey from thence to Morristown, while on the road between Pomfret and Hartford, he was seized with an extraordinary numbness of his right hand and foot, which crept gradually upon him, until his right side became, in a considerable degree, paralyzed. This severe affliction produced a transient depression of his mind ; but he conquered his dejection, and resumed his naturally cheerful temper. He was still able to walk and ride moderately, and the faculties of his mind were unimpaired. In this situation he lived to see his country enjoying that independence of which he had been so able a champion, and died at Brookline, in Connecticut, May 29, 1790, aged seventytwo years.

PUTREFACTION. (See Decomposition, Fermentation, and Adipocire.) PUTTER, John Stephen, was born at Iserlohn in 1725, and made such rapid progress in his studies, that he was ready to enter the university in his 13th year. After studying at Marburg, Halle and Jena, he became professor extraordinary of law at Göttingen, in 1747, and soon became distinguished as a lecturer. In 1757, he was named professor juris publici. Although employed in various public capacities, he still continued to reside in Göttingen, till the time of his death in 1807. His works have lost much of their importance by the dissolution of the German empire, but his Historische Entwickelung der Verfassung der Deutschen Staaten (3 vols.) is still valuable.

PUTTY, in the arts. When tin is melted in an open vessel, its surface soon becomes covered with a gray powder, which is an oxide of the metal. If the heat is continued, the color of the powder gradually changes, and at last becomes yellow. In this state it is known by the name of putty, and employed in polishing glass and other hard substances.

PUTTY is also a kind of paste, compounded of whiting and linseed oil, beaten together to the consistence of a thick dough. PUY DE DOME. (See Cevennes, and Barometer.)

PUZZOLANA. (See Pozzolana,and Cement.) PYGMALION; a prince of Cyprus, who, disgusted with the debaucheries of his country women, took an aversion to the sex. According to Ovid (Met. x, 243), having made a female statue of ivory, he was so enchanted by its beauty, that he fell in love with his own work, and entreated Venus to endow it with life. His prayer was granted; the statue began to breathe and live before his eyes, and in his embrace. It became his wife, by whom he had Paphos, the founder of the city of the same name. Rousseau's opera of Pygmalion is founded on this story. Another Pygmalion, king of Tyre and Sidon, was brother of Dido.

PYGMY. The Pygmies were a fabulous nation of dwarfs, who were said to live near the sources of the Nile, or, according to some, in India. Homer mentions them as threatened with death and destruction by the cranes (l. iii, 3). Later writers are more minute in their accounts. Pliny says that their towns and houses were built of eggshells; and, according to Philostratus, they cut down their corn, as one would fell a tree, with axes. The latter also speaks of an army of Pygmies, which

attacked Hercules, while sleeping, after his struggle with Antæus. They made such preparations for the assault, as if they were to attack a city. But the hero, on awaking, laughed at the little warriors, wrapped them up in his lion-skin, and carried them to Eurystheus.

PYLADES; son of Strophius, king of Phocis, and Anaxibia, the sister of Agamemnon, celebrated for the friendship which existed between him and Orestes. Pylades married Electra, the sister of his friend. (See Orestes.)

PYLOS; a city of Elis, the residence of Nestor, now Navarino. (q. v.) Another Pylos in Elis was the residence of Augeas. (q. v.) Some, however, consider the city of Pylos in Messenia as the residence of Ñes

tor.

PYм, John, a parliamentarian in the reign of Charles I, was descended of a good family in Somersetshire, where he was born in 1584. He was educated at Pembroke college, Oxford, whence he removed to one of the inns of court, and was called to the bar, and placed as a clerk in the office of the exchequer. He was early elected member of parliament for Tavistock in the reign of James I, and in 1626 was one of the managers of the impeachment of the duke of Buckingham. He was also a great opposer of Arminianişın, being attached to Calvinistic principles. In 1639, with several other commoners and lords, he held a close correspondence with the commissioners sent to London by the Scottish covenanters ; and in the parliament of 1640, was one of the most active and leading members. On the meeting of the long parliament, he made an able speech on grievances, and impeached the earl of Strafford, at whose trial he was one of the managers of the house of commons. It was the zeal and earnestness of Pym which led Charles into the imprudent measure of going to the parliament in person, to seize him and four other members. Some time before his death, he drew up a defence of his conduct, which leaves it doubtful what part he would have taken had he lived until hostilities commenced. In November, 1643, he was appointed lieutenant of the ordnance, and died Dec. 8, 1643.

PYRALLOLITE is a mineral which occurs massive and crystallized, in flat rhombic prisms, whose dimensions are not yet known with certainty. It is cleavable parallel with the sides of the rhombic prism; lustre resinous; color greenish or yellowish-white; translucent on the edges; hardness that of arragonite; specific grav

ity 2.6.

When reduced to powder, it phosphoresces with a bluish light. Before the blow-pipe, it first becomes black, then white, and afterwards intumesces and melts on the edges. With borax, it yields a transparent glass. It consists of silex, 56.62; magnesia, 23.38; alumine, 3.38; lime, 5.58; oxide of iron, 0.99; protoxide of manganese, 0.99; and water, 3.58; leaving 6.38 of an unknown bituminous substance, and loss. It comes from Pargas in Finland.

PYRAMID, in geometry, is a solid having any plane figure for its base, and triangles for its sides, all terminating in one common point or vertex. If the base of the pyramid is a regular figure, the solid is called a regular pyramid, which then takes particular names, according to the number of its sides, as triangular, square, pentagonal, &c., the same as the prism. (See Prism.) If a perpendicular from its vertex falls on the centre of the base, the solid is called a right pyramid, but if not, it is oblique. The principal properties of the pyramid may be stated as follows:1. Every pyramid is one third of a prism of equal base and altitude. 2. Pyramids of equal bases and altitudes are equal to each other, whether the figure of their bases be similar or dissimilar. 3. Any section of a pyramid parallel to its base will be similar to the base, and these areas will be to each other as the squares of their distances from the vertex. 4. Pyramids, when their bases are equal, are to each other as their altitudes; and when their altitudes are equal, they are to each other as their bases; and when neither their bases nor their altitudes are equal, they are to each other in the compound ratio of their bases and altitudes. The solidity of a pyramid is found by multiplying its base by its perpendicular altitude, and taking one third of the product. Frustum of a pyramid is the solid formed by cutting off the upper part of a pyramid by a section parallel to its base.

PYRAMIDS, in architecture; colossal structures of the ancient Egyptians. According to Herodotus, this people considered the pyramidal form as an emblem of human life. The broad base was significant of the beginning, and its termination in a point, of the end, of our existence in the present state; for which reason they made use of this figure in their sepulchres. Some writers derive the word pyramid from upos (wheat, grain), and understand by it granaries, such, for instance, as those built by the patriarch Joseph; others suppose it to come from Tv (fire), because

two.

the form of the pyramid is like an ascending flame. The name is probably derived from an old Egyptian word. Some derive it from piramue, a ray of the sun; others, from pirama, a high monument. The Egyptian pyramids (for similar buildings are found among the Babylonians, the Indians and the Mexicans) are large, quadrangular and hollow, having a broad base, contracting gradually towards the top, sometimes terminating in a point, sometimes in a plane surface, generally built of large, though not very hard limestones (seldom of brick or of any other kind of stone than limestone), of different heights, usually having a base equal to the height, with the four sides placed so as to face the four cardinal points, two of the sides usually being larger than the other Some maintain that they were consecrated to the sun, or some other god; others, that they served as a kind of gnomon, for astronomical observations; according to Diderot, for the preservation and transmission of historical information; according to others, they were built merely to gratify the vanity and tyranny of kings, or for the celebration of mysteries, or secret meetings, or for corn magazines, or, finally,—and this is the most common opinion of the ancients,-for sepulchres, structures in burial places, symbolical representations of the world of shades, or as chambers for mummies. Among the most renowned are those of Cheops and Cephrenes. Those now standing, all in Middle Egypt, are divided into five groups, which contain about forty pyramids. The district in which the pyramids stand, begins at Dagshoor, and extends by Sakhara and Memphis, almost to 30° N. lat., about 14,000 paces in length, and less in breadth. The group of Gize (in the neighborhood of the ancient Memphis) is the most remarkable. Here is the largest one. Herodotus says that it has been supposed to contain the bones of Cheops, and that another one hard by covers the bones of Cephrenes, his brother and successor. The account of this ancient writer is not improbable, which says that 100,000 men worked without interruption for 20 years, in building this enormous pyramid, and that Cheops became an object of hatred to his people on this account. When Savary visited the pyramids of Gize, he obtained a guard from the governor of the district, to defend him against the Arabs. He left Gize at one o'clock in the morning, and was soon gladdened by the sight of the two largest pyramids, whose summits were illuminated by the

moon. They appeared like rough, craggy peaks, piercing the clouds. At half past four in the morning, the visitors prepared to enter the great pyramid. They laid aside part of their clothes, and each one took a torch in his hand. They began to descend a long passage, which at last became so narrow that they were obliged to creep on their hands and knees. When they had passed through this passage, they were obliged to ascend in the same way. When they had traversed this second passage, they came to a much more spacious apartment, coated with granite, at one end of which Savary saw an empty marble sarcophagus, made of one piece of stone, but without a lid. Fragments of earthen vessels were scattered over the floor. They next proceeded to a second room, which lay under the one abovementioned, and was of smaller extent. It contained the entrance to a passage which was filled up with rubbish. They now ascended through this, avoiding, not without difficulty, a deep well on the left. When they reached the open air, they were all exhausted by the heat, which they had endured in the interior of the pyramids. After having rested themselves, they ascended the pyramids on the outside. They counted about 200 stone steps, varying from two to four feet in height, and they enjoyed from the summit a most delightful view of the country. The descent was much more laborious, Having reached the ground, they walked round it, and surveyed with astonishment the rough mass, which at a distance appeared smooth and regular. The form of this immense structure does not admit of a very exact measurement; the estimates which we have can only be considered as approximations. Herodotus gives 800 feet as its height, and says that this is likewise the length of its base on each side. Strabo makes it 625, Diodorus 600. Modern measurements agree most nearly with the latter. The difference of these results may be owing partly to the circumstance of their having been made at different times, and the sand having been higher at one time than another. Strabo says that the stone which closes the entrance to the pyramids, is to be found nearly in the centre of one of the sides; if this was true in his time, the soil must have been very much raised, since the entrance is not at present more than 100 feet from the ground. Herodotus says that the two largest pyramids are wholly covered with white marble; Diodorus and Pliny, that they are built of this

costly material. The account of Herodotus is confirmed by present appearances. Denon, who accompanied the French expedition to Egypt, makes the following observations on the present state of the pyramids: Bonaparte had determined to examine the great pyramid of Gize; 300 persons were appointed to this duty, among whom was Denon. They approached the borders of the desert in boats to within half a league of the pyramid, by means of the canals from the Nile. The first impression made on Denon by the sight of the pyramids did not equal his expectations, for he had no objects with which to compare them; but on approaching them, and seeing men at their feet, their gigantic size became evident. The visitors ascended a small elevation of rubbish and sand, which led to the entrance of the pyramid. This opening, which, according to Denon's calculation, is about 60 feet above the ground, is concealed by a stone wall, which forms the third and innermost of the walls surrounding the pyramid. Large stones are placed horizontally at the side of the entrance, and above these, others of enormous size are so placed as to make their fall or displacement very difficult. Here begins the first entrance, leading towards the centre and the ground floor of the building. At the end of this passage, Denon says, two large blocks of granite stopped the way. Finding all endeavors to remove this obstacle useless, he went a little way back, passed round two other blocks of stone, and succeeded in climbing over them, when he discovered another passage, so steep that it was necessary to cut steps in order to ascend it. This led into a landing place, in which is a deep hole, usually called the well. It is the entrance to a horizontal passage leading to an apartment, known under the name of the queen's chamber, which is without any inscription or ornament. From the above landing place, an opening leads in a perpendicular direction to the principal passage, and this ends in a second room, where the third and last partition is found. This is built with much greater care. Finally comes the king's chamber, which. contained a sarcophagus. pyramid has been since more completely examined by Caviglia. The other pyramid of Gize-that of Cephrenes-was first opened and visited by Belzoni in 1818. In the sarcophagus of this pyramid he found some bones, which were sent to London, and, on examination, proved to be those of an animal of the bovine spe

This