OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Mastaba

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​MASTABA (Arab. for “bench”), in Egyptian architecture, the term given to the rectangular tombs in stone with raking sides and a flat roof. There were three chambers inside. In one the walls were sometimes richly decorated with paintings and had a low bench of stone in them on which incense was burnt. The second chamber was either closed, with holes pierced in the wall separating it from the first chamber, or entered through a narrow passage through which the fumes of the incense passed; this chamber contained the serdab or figure of the deceased. A vertical well-hole cut in the rock descended to a third chamber in which the mummy was laid.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Picus

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​PICUS, in Roman mythology, originally the woodpecker, the favourite bird and symbol of Mars as the god of both nature and war. He appears later as a spirit of the forests, endowed with the gift of prophecy, haunting springs and streams, with a special sanctuary in a grove on the Aventine. As a god of agriculture, especially connected with manuring the soil, he is called the son of Stercutus (from stercus, dung, a name of Saturn). Again, Picus is the first king of Latium, son of Saturn and father of Faunus Virgil (Aen. vii. 170) describes the reception of the ambassadors of Aeneas by Latinus in an ancient temple or palace, containing figures of his divine ancestors, amongst them Picus, famous as an augur and soothsayer. According to Ovid (Metam. xiv., 320), Circe, while gathering herbs in the forest, saw the youthful hero out hunting, and immediately fell in love with him. Picus rejected her advances, and the goddess in her anger changed him into a woodpecker, which pecks impotently at the branches of trees, but still retains prophetic powers. The purple cloak which Picus wore fastened by a golden clasp is preserved in the plumage of the bird. In the simplest form of art, he was represented by a wooden pillar surmounted by a woodpecker; later, as a young man with the bird upon his head.
Picumnus is merely another form of Picus, and with him is associated his brother and double Pilummus. Picumnus, a rustic delty (like Picus) and husband of Pomona, is specially concerned with the manuring of the soil and hence called Sterquilmus, while Pilumnus is the inventor of the pounding of grain, so named from the pestle (pilum) used by bakers. Under a different aspect, the pair were regarded as the guardians of women in childbed and of new-born children. Before the child was taken up and formally recognized by the father, a couch was set out for them in the atrium, where their presence guarded it from all evil. Augustine (De civitate dei, vi 9) mentions a curious custom: to protect a woman in childbed from possible violence on the part of Silvanus, the assistance of three deities was invoked—Intercldona (the hewer), Pilumnus (the pounder) and Deverra (the sweeper). These deities were symbolically represented by three men who went round the house by night. One smote the threshold with an axe, another with a pestle, the third swept it with a broom—three symbols of culture (for trees were hewn down with the axe, grain pounded with the pestle, and the fruits of the field swept up with the broom) which Silvanus could not endure.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Pidgin English

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​PIDGIN [or Pigeon] ENGLISH, the lingua franca of the seaports of China, the Straits Settlements in the Far East, consisting in a jargon of corrupted English words with some intermixture of Portuguese and Malay, following Chinese idiomatic usage. It is employed as a means of communication between foreigners and the native Chinese. The word “pidgin” is the Chinese corruption of “business.”
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Pie

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​PIE. (1) The name of the bird more generally known as the magpie (q.v.). The word comes through the French from Lat. pica (q.v.). It is probably from the black and white or spotted appearance of the bird that the name “pie” or “pye” (Lat. pica) was given to the ordinal, a table or calendar which supplemented that which gave the services for the fixed festivals, &c., and pointed out the effect on them of the festivals rendered movable by the changing date of Easter. An English act of 1549 (3 & 4 Edw. VI. c. 10) abolished “pies” with manuals, legends, primers and other service books. The parti-coloured appearance of the magpie also gives rise to the term “piebald,” applied to an animal, more particularly a horse, which is marked with large irregular patches of white and black; where the colour is white and some colour other than black, the more appropriate word is “skew-bald,” i.e. marked with “skew” or irregular patches. (2) A dish made of meat, fish or other ingredients, also of vegetables or fruit, baked in a covering of pastry; in English usage, where “fruit” is the ingredient, the dish is generally called a “tart,” except in the case of “apple-pie.” The word appears early in the 14th century of meat or fish pies.
The expression “to eat humble-pie,” i.e. to make an apology, to retract or recant, is a facetious adaptation of “umbles” (O. Fr. nombles, connected with Lat. lumbus, loin or umbilicus, navel), the inner parts of a deer, to “humble” (Lat. humilis, lowly). An “umble-pie,” made of the inner parts of a deer or other animal, was once a favourite dish. “Printers' pie,” i.e. a mass of confused type, is a transferred sense of “pie,” the dish, or of “pie,” the ordinal, from the difficulty of decipherment.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Piedmont

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​PIEDMONT (Ital. Piemonle; Low Lat. Pedemons and Pedemontium), a territorial division (compartimento) of northern ​Italy, bounded N. by Switzerland, W. by France, S. by Liguria had been deemed sufficient when the roof was of timber only, and E. by Lombardy. Physically it may be briefly described as the upper gathering-ground and valley of the river Po, enclosed on all sides except towards the Lombard plain by the vast semicircle of the Pennine, Graian, Cottian, Maritime and Ligurian Alps. In 1859 it was divided into the four provinces of Alessandria, Cuneo, Novara and Torino (Turin). It has an area of 11,340 sq. m. The people are chiefly engaged in agriculture—growing wheat, maize and rice, chestnuts, wine and hemp, in the reeling and throwing of silk and in the manufact1ire of cotton, woollens and clothing, there are also considerable manufactures at Turin, Savigliano, &c. The Piedmontese dialect has been rather strongly influenced by French. The ch1ef towns in the several provinces are as follows, with their communal populations in 1901: Alessandria (72,109), Asti (39,251), Casale Monferrato (31,370), Novi Ligure (17,868), Tortona (17,419), Acqui (13,940), Valenza (10,956), Ovada (10,284), total of province 825,745, number of communes 343; Cuneo (26,879), Mondovi (18,982), Fossano (18,175), Savigliano (17,340), Saluzzo (16,028), Bra (15,821), Alba (13,637), Boves (10,137); total of province 670,504, number of communes 263, Novara (44,249), Vercelli (30,470), Biella (19,267) Trino (12,138), Borgomanero (10,131), total of province 763,830; number of sommunes, 437; Turin (329,691), Pinerolo (18,039), Carmagnola (11,721), Ivrea (11,696), Moncalieri (11,467); total of province 1,147,414; number of communes, 442. The total population of Piedmont was 2,738,814 in 1859, and in 1901 3,407,493. The large number of communes is noticeable, as in Lombardy, and points to a village life which, owing to greater insecurity and the character of the country, is not to be found in central and southern Italy as a whole There are numerous summer resorts in the Alpine valleys. The chief railway centres are Turin, communicating with the Mont Cenis line, and with the Riviera by the railway over the Col di Tenda (in process of construction), Novara, Vercelli, Asti, Alessandria, Novi. The communications with Liguria are difficult owing to the approach of the mountains to the coast, and the existing lines from Genoa to Turin and Milan are hardly sufficient to cope with the traffic.
Piedmont in Roman times until 49 B.C. formed a part of Gallia Transpadana, and in Augustus' division of Italy formed with what was later known as Lombardy the 11th region. It formed part of the Lombard kingdom, and it was not till about A.D. 1000 that the house of Savoy (q.v.) arose. The subsequent history of Piedmont is that of its dynasty.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Pictet de la Rive, François Jules

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​PICTET DE LA RIVE, FRANÇOIS JULES (1809–1872), Swiss zoologist and palaeontologist, was born in Geneva on the 27th of September 1809. He graduated B. ès. Sc. at Geneva in 1829, and pursued his studies for a short time at Paris, where under the influence of Cuvier, de Blainville and others, he worked at natural history and comparative anatomy. On his return to Geneva in 1830 he assisted A. P. de Candolle by giving demonstrations in comparative anatomy. Five years later, when de Candolle retired, Pictet was appointed professor of zoology and comparative anatomy. In 1846 his duties were restricted to certain branches of zoology, including geology and palaeontology, and these he continued to teach until 1859, when he retired to devote his energies to the museum of natural history and to special palaeontological work. He was rector of the academy from 1847 to 1850, and again from 1866 to 1868. He was for many years a member of the Representative Council of Geneva, and in 1862 President of the Constituent Assembly. His earlier published work related chiefly to entomology, and included Recherches pour servir à l’histoire et à l’anatomie des Phryganides (1834) and two parts of Histoire naturelle, générale et particulière des insectes Neuroptères (1842–1845). Feeling the want of a hand-book, he prepared his Traité élémentaire de paléontologie (4 vols. 1844–1846). In the first edition Pictet, while adopting the hypothesis of successive creations of species, admitted that some may have originated through the modification of pre-existing forms. In his second edition (1853–1857) he enters further into the probable transformation of some species, and discusses the independence of certain faunas, which did not appear to have originated from the types which locally preceded them. He now directed his attention to the fossils of his native country, more especially to those of the Cretaceous and Jurassic strata, and in 1854 he commenced the publication of his great work, Matériaux pour la paléontologie suisse, a series of quarto memoirs, of which six were published (1854–1873). In this work Pictet was aided by E Renevier, G. Campiche, P. de Loriol and others. Pictet also brought out Mélanges paléontologiques (1863–1868). He died at Geneva on the 15th of March 1872.
Obituary by W. S. Dallas, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. (1873), vol. xxix.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Pictou

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​PICTOU, a seaport, port of entry, and capital of Pictou county, Nova Scotia, 90 m. N.E. by N. of Halifax, on a branch of the Intercolonial railway. Pop. (1901), 3235, It has several valuable industries, and is the shipping port for the adjacent coal-mines. The Academy, founded in 1818, played an important part in the early educational history of the province, and still enjoys a high reputation.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Pienza

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​PIENZA, a town of Tuscany, Italy, in the province of Siena, 9 m. west of the town of Montepulciano by road, 1611 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1901), 2730 (town); 3836 (commune). The place was originally called Corsignano and owes its present name to Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, Pope Pius II. (q.v.) who was born here in 1405. The buildings which he caused to be erected by Bernardo Rossellino in 1460–1463 form a noble group of early Renaissance architecture round the Piazza del Duomo. The latter retains Gothic details in the interior, but the façade is simple Renaissance work. The other three sides are occupied by the episcopal and municipal palaces, and the Palazzo Piccolomini, the last, resembling the Palazzo Rucellai at Florence, is the finest, and in front of it is a beautiful fountain. The episcopal palace contains a museum with some fine ecclesiastical vestments, enamels and other works of art.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Neckargemünd

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​NECKARGEMÜND, a town and climatic health resort of Germany, in the grand duchy of Baden, situated amid densely wooded hills, on the left bank of the Neckar, 6 m. E. from Heidelberg by the railway to Würzburg and at the junction of a line to Jagstfeld. Pop. (1905) 2200. It has an important trade in wine. The other industries are quarrying, tanning and shipbuilding, and there are electrical works. Neckargemünd, one of the favourite tourist resorts in the Neckar valley, was founded in the 10th century and became a free town in 1286. In 1395 it passed to the elector palatine and, together with the surrounding district, was apportioned to Baden in 1814.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Necrology

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​NECROLOGY (from Med. Lat. necrologium, Gr. νεκρός, corpse, the termination being formed from λόγιος, λέγειν to read, in the sense of list, register; cf. “martyrology”), a register in a monastery or other ecclesiastical establishment of the names of the deceased members of the society, or of those for whom the prayers of the foundation were offered as benefactors; hence any roll or list of deceased persons or collection of obituaries.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Necessitas

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​NECESSITAS (Gr. Ἀνάγκη), in Orphic theology, the personification of absolute necessity. She appears as the mother of the Moerae (Fates), as the wife of Demiurgus (Fashioner of the World) and mother of Heimarmenē (Destiny). Her power is irresistible, even greater than that of the gods; to her was due the strife (battles with Titans, Giants) that raged amongst them of old, before the rule of love began; the world revolves round the spindle, which she holds in her lap. According to the Egyptian theory, she is one of the four deities present at the birth of every human being, her companions being the Daemon (guardian spirit), Tyche (Fortune) and Eros. On the citadel of Corinth there was a temple sacred to her and Bia (Violence), which none were permitted to enter. The Roman Necessitas is represented in the well-known ode of Horace (i. 35) as the forerunner and companion of Fortuna, holding in her brazen hand huge nails, a clamp and molten lead, symbolical of fixedness and tenacity.
See Plato, Rep. 616 c, Symp. 195 c, 197 b; Macrobius, Saturnalia, i. 19; Pausanias ii. 4. 6.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Neckar

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​NECKAR, a river of Germany, and a right-bank tributary of the Rhine, rises between the Black Forest and the Swabian Alb, near Schwenningen, in Württemberg, at an altitude of 2287 ft. As far as Rottweil only a mountain stream, it here attains the volume of a river, flows N. as far as Horb, thence in a north-easterly direction, and with rapid current it passes Rottenburg and the university town of Tübingen, taking then a generally northerly course. From Esslingen the Neckar becomes broader and deeper and its valley very picturesque, and after passing Cannstatt, from which point it is navigable for small craft, it flows through vine-clad hills by the pleasant village of Marbach, Schiller’s birthplace, receives at Besigheim the waters of its most considerable tributary, the Enz, swirls down by Lauffen, and enters the beautiful vale of Heilbronn. Hence, between hills crowned by frequent feudal castles, it runs by Wimpfen and by Hornberg, where Götz von Berlichingen lived, to Eberbach, where it enters the sandstone formation of the Odenwald. It now takes a tortuous westerly course, and the scenery on its banks becomes more romantic. Winding down by Neckarsteinach and Neckargemünd between lofty wooded heights, it sweeps beneath the Königsstuhl (1900 ft.), washes the walls of Heidelberg, and now quitting the valley enters the plain of the Rhine and falls into that river from the right at Mannheim. Its length is 247 m., and its drainage area 4790 sq. m. Its more important tributaries are the Enz, Eschach and Glatt (left), and the Fils, Rems, Kocher and Jagst (right). It is navigable for small steamboats up to Heilbronn, for boats up to Cannstatt, and for rafts from Rottweil. It is the principal waterway of Württemberg, and is greatly used for floating down timber. From Rottenburg downwards its banks are almost everywhere planted with vineyards. Up to Frankfort it has been deepened and the channel otherwise improved. A committee, chiefly promoted by the Württemberg government and the Stuttgart chamber of commerce, reported in 1901 that it was both desirable and practicable to dredge the river and to canalize it, from Esslingen down to Mannheim, and that the cost would probably be between 2 and 21/2 millions sterling.
See T. Eckart, Bilder aus dem Neckartal (1893).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Necessity

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​NECESSITY (Lat. necessitas), a term used technically in philosophy for the quality of inevitable happening; for example, hot air necessarily tends to rise. Thus it corresponds in the sphere of action to certainty in the sphere of knowledge. That the sun will rise to-morrow is a necessary event; and men anticipate the rising with certainty. In ordinary language the conception of necessity is rendered meaningless by being referred to the present or even to the past. A current definition of necessity is “the state which cannot be otherwise than it is.” Such a definition tells us nothing. How can any state be otherwise than it is? Necessity can have meaning only in reference to the future: it means absence of spontaneous power in that which acts necessarily. For the origin of the conception we must look to our inward personal experience of constraint. When we are acting under physical or mathematical or logical or moral necessity we are so far precluded from spontaneous action—in common phrase, we can do no otherwise—though the causes of constraint may be of very different kinds. In ethics the term necessitarianism is applied to that view of human action which regards all action as dictated by external causes (cf. Determinism). The sense in which, if at all, the human mind can cognize necessity, i.e. causal connexion between events or states, has been the subject of vigorous discussion among philosophers. By sceptics and empiricists it is held that a law is merely a crystallized summary of observed phenomena. Thus J. S. Mill denies that a general proposition is more than an enumeration of particulars, and hence that syllogistic reasoning cannot amplify knowledge (see Syllogism). It is clear that the senses cannot apprehend causal connexion, and this impossibility gives rise to a prior conception according to which the conception of necessity is purely intellectual (see Metaphysics).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Necromancy

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​NECROMANCY (Gr. νεκρομαντεία, or νεκυομαντεία, from νεκρός or νέκυς, corpse, and μαντεία, divination, properly divination by communicating with the dead. The latinized form of the Greek word was corrupted into nigromantia, connecting the word with niger, black, and so was applied to the “black art,” “black magic,” in the sense of witchcraft, sorcery. This corrupted form is common in English to the 17th century (see Magic and Witchcraft).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Graves, Alfred Perceval

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​GRAVES, ALFRED PERCEVAL (1846– ), Irish writer, was born in Dublin, the son of the bishop of Limerick. He was educated at Windermere College, and took high honours at Dublin University. In 1869 he entered the Civil Service as clerk in the Home Office, where he remained until he became in 1874 an inspector of schools. He was a constant contributor of prose and verse to the Spectator, The Athenaeum, John Bull, and Punch, and took a leading part in the revival of Irish letters. He was for several years president of the Irish Literary Society, and is the author of the famous ballad of “Father O’Flynn” and many other songs and ballads. In collaboration with Sir C. V. Stanford he published Songs of Old Ireland (1882), Irish Songs and Ballads (1893), the airs of which are taken from the Petrie MSS.; the airs of his Irish Folk-Songs (1897) were arranged by Charles Wood, with whom he also collaborated in Songs of Erin (1901).
His brother, Charles L. Graves (b. 1856), educated at Marlborough and at Christ Church, Oxford, also became well known as a journalist, author of two volumes of parodies, The Hawarden Horace (1894) and More Hawarden Horace (1896), and of skits in prose and verse. An admirable musical critic, his Life and Letters of Sir George Grove (1903) is a model biography.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Gray

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​GRAY, a town of eastern France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Haute-Saône, situated on the declivity of a hill on the left bank of the Saône, 36 m. S.W. of Vesoul by the Eastern railway. Pop. (1906) 5742. The streets of the town are narrow and steep, but it possesses broad and beautiful quays and has a busy port. Three bridges, one dating from the 18th century, unite it to suburbs on the right bank of the river, on which is the railway-station from which lines branch off to Auxonne, Dijon, Besançon and Culmont-Chalindrey. The principal buildings are the Gothic church, restored in the style of the Renaissance but with a modern portal, and the hôtel de ville, built by the Spaniards in 1568. The latter building has a handsome façade decorated with columns of red granite. Gray is the seat of a subprefect and has tribunals of first instance and of commerce, a chamber of commerce, a communal college and a small museum. It has large flour-mills; among the other industries is the manufacture of machinery and iron goods. There is also a considerable transit traffic in goods from the south of France and the colonies, and trade in iron, corn, provisions, vegetables, wine, wood, &c., much of which is carried by river. Gray was founded in the 7th century. Its fortifications were destroyed by Louis XIV. During the Franco-German War General von Werder concentrated his army corps in the town and held it for a month, making it the point d’appui of movements towards Dijon and Langres, as well as towards Besançon.
Gray gave its name to the distinguished English family of de Gray, Gray or Grey, Anschitel de Gray being mentioned as an Oxfordshire tenant in Domesday.