P, a labial consonant, is formed by a slight compression of the anterior part of the lips; and is confounded by the German and Welsh with b. It has an uniform sound; but is sometimes mute before ; as accompt, receipt; but the mute p is in modern orthography commonly emitted. P is used, 1. as a letter; 2. as an a reviation; 3. it was anciently used as a numeral. 1. As a letter, P is the fifteenth of the alphabet, and the eleventh consonant. The sound is formed by expressing the Ireath somewhat mere suddenly than in forming the sound of b; m other respects these two sounds are pretty much alike. When p stands before it or 3 ts sound is lost; as in the words psalms, Iychology, ptolemaic, ptisan, &c. When placed before h they both together have the Sound off; as in philosophy, physic, &c. P and B are so like each other, that in ancient inscriptions, and old glossaries, these two letters have often been confounded. Several nations still pronounce one for the other. The Welsh and Germans say, ponum vinum for bonum v.num. Among the Latins, as often as an s followed, the b was changed into a p, as scribo, scripsi. St. Jerome observes, on Daniel, that the Hebrews had no P'; but that the ph served them instead; adding that there is but one word in the whole Bible read with a P. viz. apadno. 2. As an abbreviation, P stands for Publius, Pondo, &c. P. A. DIG. for Patricia Dignitas; P. C. for Patres Conscripti; P. F. for Publii Flus; P. P. for Propositum, or Propositum publice; P. R. for Populus Romanus; P. R.S. for Pratoris sententia; P. R. S. P. for Prases provinciæ. P. M., among astronomers, is frequently used for post meridiem, or afternoon; and sometimes for post mane, after the morning, i. e. after midnight. On the French coins, P denotes those that were struck at I jon. In the Italian music, P stands for piano, or softly ; and P. P. P. for pianissimo, or very softly. Among physicians, P stands for pugil, or the eighth part of a handful; P..E. partes a quales, or equal parts of the ingredients; P. P. signifies pelvis patrum, or Jesuit's bark in powder; and ppt. praparatus, prepared. 3. As a numeral, P was used among the ancients to signify the same with the G, viz. 100; though Baronius thinks it rather stood for seven. When a dash was added a-top of F, it stood for 400,000. The Greck signified eighty.

PA, a city of China, in Sechuen, of the second rank. It stands in long. 106° 24′ E., lat. 31°

31 N.

PA, a fortified city of China, of the second rank, in Pe-che-lee, fifty miles south of Pekin. Also a town of Thibet, 450 miles east of Lassa.

PAARDEBERG, or the Horse Mountain, a division of the district of Drakenstein, Cape of Good Hope, so named from the number of zebras that were formerly found here. Its chief produce

is wheat.

PAARLBERG, a mountain in the territory of the Cape, to the north of the peninsula on which Cape Town is situated. A chain of large rocks,

like a necklace, pass over the summit, and present a very remarkable appearance, which gives name to the mountain. Two of them, placed near the central and highest point, are called the Diamond and the Pearl. The Pearl is about 400 feet above the summit of the hill, and the circumference of its base is nearly a mile. The Diamond is larger. See CAPE OF GOOD HOPE.

PAAW (Peter), a Dutch physician, born at Amsterdam in 1564. He became eminent at Leyden, where he wrote several Latin treatises on medicine, and died in 1716.

PABAY, a small island of the Hebrides, about eight miles from Barray, nearly a mile and a half long, one broad, inhabited by three families.

PABBA, a small island of Scotland, two miles from Sky, about a mile long, and three-fourths of a mile broad. It is used only for pasturing cattle. In one place are indications of iron ore; and many of the rocks are of the finest limestone, and exhibit beautiful petrifactions. At its northern extremity are the remains of a chapel.

PABBAY, one of the isles which compose the district of Harris, Inverness, Scotland. It has a conical appearance, and rises to a high peak. Its diameter, at the base, may measure about two miles and a half. This island, once fertile in corn, has its south side now covered with sand drift, and exhibits the most desolate ap pearance. Towards the south-west, indeed, it is partially sheltered, and still productive; but on the north-west again, where exposed to the seaspray, scarcely any vegetation remains.

PABLO, a small lake of Quito, in the province of Otabalo, on which is situated a settlement of this name. Forty miles east of Quito. It is also the name of other settlements of South America.

PACAJES, a province of Peru, bounded north by Chucuito and the great lake, north-east by Omasuayos, east by La Paz and Sicasica, south by Oruro, Paria, and Carangas, and south-west and west by the lofty chain of the Andes. Its length from the bridge of the Desaguadaro, which divides it from Chucuito, to the province of Paria, is fifty-six leagues, and its greatest width forty. The climate is cold, and the population, chiefly Indian, very thinly scattered. A mine of tale, which supplies the whole of Peru with window lights, is its only remarkable production.

PACAMOROS YAGUAR-ONGO, or San Juan de Salinas, vulgarly called De Bracamoros, a province and government of Quito, bounded north by the territory of Zamora and the province of Lova, west by Piura, south by the river Amazon, and east by Indian territories. This pro

vince is thinly peopled, but has rich gold mines. The pastures and tobacco are excellent. It also yields wax, cotton, and the finest cacao.

PACASMAYU, a river and bay of Peru, in the province of Saria, which flows down the mountains of Caxamarca, runs west, and falls into the Pacific. In its mouth are caught excellent fish. Lat. of its mouth 7° 24' S.

PACCALONGANG, a European town and fort on the north coast of the island of Java, 282 miles east of Batavia. It is the seat of a resident, a few Dutch families, and a numerous population of natives and Chinese. The great road across the island passes through this place; and near it is a forest many miles in extent, which is so unhealthy that about 4000 people perished in cutting that part.

PACE, n. s., v. n., & v. a. I Fr. pas; Italian PACED, adj. Spasso; Lat. passus. Step; manner of step or walk; gait; gradation; degree of celerity; a measure of five feet; a particular movement of a horse: to move regularly or slowly; to measure by steps: paced, is having a particular gait.

He soft arrived on the grassie plain,
And fairly paced forth with easy pain.

Spenser.

A PACE is a measure taken from the space between the two feet of a man in walking; usually reckoned two feet and a half, and in some men a yard or three feet. The geometrical pace is five feet; and 60,000 such paces make 1° on the equator.

PACE (Richard), a learned Englishman, born about 1482. Henry VIII. made him secretary of state; and he was admitted prebendary of York, archdeacon of Dorset, and dean of St. Paul's, &c., during his absence on foreign embassies. Falling under the displeasure of Wolsey, he was so ill treated as to drive him mad, and was thrown into the Tower on his complaining to the king. After being confined two years, he was enlarged, resigned his deaneries, and died in retirement, at Stepney, in 1532, after having written several works. He was much esteemed by the learned men of his time, especially Sir Thomas More and Erasmus.

PACHA, a title of honor and command in the east, synonymous with bashaw. See BASHAW. PACHETE, or PACHER, a zemindary in the province of Bengal, now incorporated in the surrounding districts of Ramgur, Birbhoom, and Burdwan. In 1784 Pachete, Chuta, Nagpoor, Palamow, and Ramgur, contained, according to major Rennel's mensuration, 21,732 square miles, of which 16,732 were nearly waste. The revenue was 161,216 rupees. Pachete is bounded by Chuta Nagpoor, and Ramgur, containing a jungly territory of about 2779 square miles, which was once a frontier territory towards the western confines of Bengal, and still retains much of the sterility and barbarism of the neighbouring regions to the south. The climate is very unhealthy. The principal towns are Pachete, Rogonauthgunge, and Jauldah, which, with the zemindary, were formerly held by the Rajpoot Narrain family. The chief products of this province are rice and cotton.

PACHETE, a town in the province of Bengal, the capital of the zemindary of this name, 126 miles north-west from Calcutta.

PACHODECARHOMBIS, in the ancient system of mineralogy, a genus of fossils, of the class of selenitæ. The word is derived from the Greek Taxoç, thick, dɛka, ten, and poμßoc, a rhombus, and expresses a thick rhomboidal body, composed of ten planes. The characters are that the selenitæ of it consist of ten planes; but, as the top and bottom in the leptodecarhombes are broader and larger planes than any of the rest, the great thickness of this genus, on the contrary, makes its four longer planes in all the bodies of it, meeting in an obtuse angle from its sides, its largest planes. There are four species.

PACHUCO, a town and province of the intendancy of Mexico. It has a magnificent parish church; and the royal coffers, where the treasurer and accomptant reside, were formerly here. The trade in silver is the principal of the place. The ground on which it stands is 8141 feet high, forty-five miles north-east of Mexico.

PACHYMERUS (George), a Greek historian of the fourteenth century. He wrote a History of the East, which merits the more credit from the share he had in the transactions he records. It commences with the year 1308.

groups of islands, which seem, as it were, the summits of vast mountains. Separately considered, this ocean receives but few rivers; the chief being the Amur from Tartary, and the Hoan-ho and Kian-ku from China, the principal American rivers running east. As the boundary of the Russian empire, the Pacific washes the shores of the government of Irkutsk, from Tschukotskoy Noss, or Cook's Straits, to the frontiers of China; or from the mouth of the river Aimakan, that is, from 65° to 45° N. lat. It is divided into two great parts. That lying eastwards from Kamtschatka, between Siberia and America, is eminently styled the Eastern or the Pacific Ocean; that on the west side from Kamtschatka, between Siberia, the Chinese

South. PACIFIC OCEAN, Mare Pacificum, or South Sea, in geography, that vast ocean which separates Asia from America, originally called Pacific from the moderate weather which the first mariners, and particularly Magellan, who sailed in it, met with between the tropics; and it was called the South Sea, because the Spaniards crossed the Isthmus of Darien from north to south. With regard to America it is also sometimes called the Western Ocean. Far from this ocean being less infested with storms than the Atlantic, no sea is subject to rougher storms in high latitudes; but Magellan happening to have a very favorable wind, and not meeting with any thing to ruffle him when he first traversed this vast ocean in 1520, gave it the name which it has retained ever since. Maty adds, that the wind is so regular here that the vessels would frequently go from Acapulco to the Philippine Islands, without shifting a sail. The general trade winds in the Pacific Ocean are similar to those of the Atlantic, blowing constantly between the north and east in the northern tropic, and between the south and east in the southern. Near the west coast of America their limits are strictly confined to the tropics, or even within them, but they widen as they move onwards towards the coast of Asia.

This ocean fills the largest cavity of the globe, occupying nearly half of its surface from the eastern shores of New Holland to the western of

Mongoley, and the Kurilly Islands, the sea of
Okhotsk. Again, from the place where the river
Anadyr falls into it, it is called the sea of
Anadyr; about Kamtschatka, the sea of Kamt-
schatka; and the bay between the districts of
Okhotsk and Kamtschatka, is called the sea of
Okhotsk, the upper part of which is termed
Penjinskoye Mare as it approaches the mouth
of the river Penjina. See our articles GEOGRA-
PHY and OCEAN.

PACK, n. s., v. a., & v. n.)
PACK'-CLOTH, N. S.

PACK'ER,
PACKET, n. s. & v.a.
PACKHORSE, N. S.
PACKSADDLE,

PACKTHREAD,
PACKWAX.

Fr. pacquet; Ital. pacchetto; Swed. and Belg. pack; Dan. packke. A bundle; bale; band; set; number: hence a given number of cards

or hounds, party of people, &c.; any great number: to pack is to bind up for carriage or despatch: hence to unite selected persons in a design; sort cards in a particular manner: to tie up goods; go after, or remove, in haste; concert measures (generally applied in an ill sense): a packet is a small pack or bundle; particularly of letters; the vessel which carries a mail bag: to packet is used by Swift for to bind up parcels: a packhorse is, a horse of burden; a horse used for carrying packs: packsaddle and packthread a saddle and thread, used to carry and tie up packages: packwax, an animal secretion.

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Your beards deserve not so honourable a grave aa to stuff a butcher's cushion, or to be entombed in an ass's packsaddle. Id. About his shelves Remnants of packthread, and old cakes of roses, Were thinly scattered. Id. Romeo and Juliet. There be that can pack cards and yet cannot play well; so there are some that are good in canvasses and factions, that are otherwise weak men.

Bacon's Essays. Themistocles said to the king of Persia, that speech was like cloth of Arras, opened and put abroad, whereby the imagery appears in figures; whereas in thoughts they lie but as in packs. Bacon. There passed continually packets and dispatches between the two kings. Id. Henry VII.

Girding of the body of the tree about with packthread, restraineth the sap. Id. Natural History. The wind no sooner came good, but away pack the gallies with all the haste they could. Carew.

That this so profitable a merchandize, riseth not to a proportionable enhancement with other less beneficial commodities, they impute partly to the eastern buyers packing, partly to the owners not vending the same.

Had sly Ulysses at the sack

Of Troy, brought thee his pedlar's pack.

The marigold, whose courtier's face

Ecchoes the sun, and doth unlace

Her at his rise, at his full stop
Packs and shuts up her gaudy shop.

Id.

Cleaveland.

Id.

That brave prancing courser hath been so broken and brought low by her, that he will patiently take the bit and bear a packsaddle or panniers. Upon your late command

Howel.

Denham.

To guard the passages, and search all packets, This to the prince was intercepted. Never such a pack of knaves and villains, as they who now governed in the parliament.

Clarendon.

horse who is driven constantly forwards and backwards to market, should be skilled in the geography of the country. Locke.

Several parts peculiar to brutes are wanting in man; as the strong aponeuroses of the neck, called packwax. Ray.

Brutes, called men, in full ery packed by the court or country, run down in the house of commons, a deserted horned beast of the court.

Wycherley.

The pack taken together, composed of fifty-two cards, is palpably a symbol of the solar year, consisting of fifty-two weeks, referring to time in general; and however dealt out, in its speedy revolution, affords a document, that even in our pastimes we

should be mindful of its transient and brief duration. Whyte's Poems, notes.

It is wonderful to see persons of sense passing away a dozen hours together in shuffling and dividing a pack of cards. Addison.

What we looked upon as brains, were an heap of strange materials, packed up with wonderful art in the skull. Id.

His horse is vicious, for which reason I tie him close to his manger with a packthread. Id.

The expected council was dwindled into a conventicle; a packed assembly of Italian bishops, not a free convention of fathers from all quarters.

Atterbury. Women to cards may be compared, we play A round or two, when used we throw away, Take a fresh pack.

Granville.

I can compare such productions to nothing but rich pieces of patchwork, sewed together with _packFelton.

thread.

The judge shall jobb, the bishop bite the town, And mighty dukes pack cards for half a crown.

Pope.

Bickerstaff is more a man of honour than to be an accomplice with a pack of rascals that walk the streets on nights.

Swift.

Poor Stella must pack off to town, From purling streams and fountains bubbling, To Liffy's stinking tide at Dublin.

Id.

People would wonder how the news could come, especially if the wind be fair when the packet goes

over.

Id.

My resolution is to send you all your letters, well sealed and packeted.

Id.

So many greater fools than they, Will pack a crowded audience the third day. Southern.

The savage soul of game is up at once, The pack full opening various. Thomson's Summer.

PACORUS, the eldest of the thirty sons of Orodes, king of Parthia, who defeated Crassus, and took him prisoner, and took Syria from the Romans. He supported Pompey and the republican party; but was at last killed by Bassus, A. A. C. 39. See PARTHIA.

PACOS, in zoology, a species of camel, known among many by the name of the Indian sheep, or Peruvian sheep. See CAMELUS. This creature has been accounted a sheep, because its hair is so long as to resemble wool, and it is prodigiously thick, its head and neck alone having more wool on them than the whole body of our largest sheep. Its body is clothed in the same proportion with a woolly hair equally fine. PACT, n. s. Fr. pact; Lat. pactum. PACTION, Both the substantives are PACTITIOUS, adj. used to signify a bargain or covenant: pactitious is, settled by covenant.