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# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Protesilaus

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​PROTESILAUS, in Greek legend, son of Iphiclus, and husband of Laodameia. In command of the Greek contingent from Phylace in Thessaly, he was the first to spring ashore on Trojan soil, although he knew it meant instant death. His wife besought the gods below that he might be permitted to return to earth for the space of three hours. Her prayer was granted, and on the expiration of the time allotted she returned with him to the nether world. According to Hyginus (Fab. 103, 104), Laodameia made a waxen image of her husband. A slave, having detected her in the act of embracing it and supposing it to be a lover, informed her father, who ordered her to burn the image; whereupon she threw herself with it into the flames. In another account (Conon, Narrationes, 13) Protesilaus survived the fall of Troy and carried off Aethilla, the sister of Priam. During a halt on the peninsula of Pallene, Aethilla and the other captive women set fire to the ships. Protesilaus, unable to continue his voyage, remained and built the city of Scione. His tomb and temple were to be seen near Eleus in the Thracian Chersonese. Nymphs had planted elm-trees, facing towards Troy, which withered away as soon as they had grown high enough to see the captured city. Protesilaus was the subject of a tragedy by Euripides, of which some fragments remain.
Iliad, ii. 698; Lucian, Dial mort. xxiii. 1; Ovid, Heroides, xiii.; Philostratus, Heroica, iii.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Rhyl

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​RHYL, a watering-place and urban district of Flint, N. Wales, practically equidistant by rail from Bangor (29½ m.) and Chester (30 m.), and 209 m. from London on the London 81 North-Western railway. Pop. (1901) 8473. It is situated near the mouth of the Clwyd. Formerly, like Llandudno, a small fishing village, the town has now all the appointments of a popular resort. In winter the gales often fill the streets to the depth of several feet, with drifts of sand from the surrounding dunes, which, however, are noted in summer for the dry and bracing air. The neighbouring country is interesting from its scenery and antiquities. Among the institutions of the town may be mentioned the Queen Alexandra Hospital (1902), and several hydropathic establishments and convalescent homes. The estuary harbours coasting vessels, and some shipbuilding is carried on. On the beach towards Prestatyn can be seen the remains of a submerged forest.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Rhytina

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​RHYTINA, a name applied to the northern sea-cow (Rhytina gigas, or stelleri), a gigantic relative of the manati and dugong, which formerly inhabited Bering and Copper Islands, in the North Pacific, where it was discovered during Bering's voyage in 1741, and subsequently described by Steller, who accompanied that expedition as a naturalist. Bering's half-starved sailors soon reduced the numbers of these comparatively helpless creatures; and it was not long after—probably about the year 1768—that the species, which was the sole representative of its genus, became completely exterminated. The Rhytina was the largest member of the order Sirenia, attaining a length of nearly twenty feet; and had a very thick, rugged, bark-like skin. The jaws, which are bent downwards to a moderate extent, are unprovided with teeth, but in life carried ridged horny plates. The tail was very deeply forked; and the flippers were short and truncated, lacking apparently the terminal joints of the digits.
When first discovered, this Sirenian was extremely numerous in the bays of Bering Island, where it browsed upon the abundant sea-tangle. Its extirpation is due to the Russian sailors and traders who visited the island in pursuit of seals and sea-otters, and who subsisted on its flesh. Numbers of bones have been discovered in the soil of Bering and Copper Islands, from which more or less nearly perfect skeletons have been reconstructed, so that the osteology of this interesting animal is well represented in most of the larger museums. (R. L.*)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Rhīanus

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​RHĪANUS, Greek poet and grammarian, a native of Crete, friend and contemporary of Eratosthenes (275–195 B.C.). Suīdas says he was at first a slave and overseer of a palaestra, but obtained a good education later in life, and devoted himself to grammatical studies, probably in Alexandria. He prepared a new recension of the Iliad and Odyssey, characterized by sound judgment and poetical taste. His bold atheteses are frequently mentioned in the scholia. He also wrote epigrams, eleven of which, preserved in the Greek anthology and Athenaeus, show elegance and vivacity. But he was chiefly known as a writer of epics (mythological and ethnographical), the most celebrated of which was the Messeniaca in six books, dealing with the second Messenian war and the exploits of its central figure Aristomenes, and used by Pausanias in his fourth book as a trustworthy authority. Other similar poems were the Achaica, Eliaca, and Thessalica. The Heracleia was a long mythological epic, probably an imitation of the poem of the same name by Panyasis, and containing the same number of books (fourteen).
Fragments in A. Meineke, Analecta Alexandrina (1843); for Rhianus's work in connexion with Homer, see C. Mayhoff, De Rhiani Studiis Homericis (Dresden, 1870); also W. Christ, Geschichte der griechischen Litteratur (1898).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Rhymney

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​RHYMNEY, an urban district in the western parliamentary division of Monmouthshire, England, on the borders of Glamorganshire, 22 m. N. by W. of Cardiff, on the Rhymney, the London & North-Western, and the Brecon & Merthyr railways. Pop. (1901), 7015. The Rhymney river, in the upper valley of which this town lies, forms almost throughout its course, to the estuary of the Severn near Cardiff, the boundary between England and Wales (Monmouthshire and Glamorganshire). In its upper part the valley, like others adjacent and parallel to it, is populous with mining townships, and the town of Rhymney owes its importance to the neighbouring coal-mines and to its iron and steel works, which employ nearly the whole population. The works of the Rhymney Iron Company, including blast furnaces and rolling mills, are among the largest of the kind in England.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Rhöngebirge

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​RHÖNGEBIRGE, or Die Rhön, a mountain-chain of central Germany, running in a north-westerly direction from the Bavarian province of Lower Franconia to the Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau and the grand duchy of Saxe-Weimar, and divided by the Werra from the Thuringian Forest on the N. The other sides are bounded by the Fulda on the W. and the Sinn and Frankish Saab on the E. and S. Its length is 50 m., breadth 5–7 m., and its mean elevation 1900 ft. This district is divided into three groups—the southern, the high (Hohe) and the nearer (Vordere) Rhön. Of these the southern, a continuation of the Spessart, largely consists of flat conical masses and reaches its highest point in the Heiliger Kreuzberg (2900 ft.). The Hohe Rhön, beginning immediately to the north-west of the latter mountain, is a high plateau of red sandstone, covered with fens and basalt peaks. It is a wild, dreary, inclement tract of country, covered with snow for six months in the year and visited by frequent fogs and storms. It is said of it that whoever desires to experience a northern winter can spare himself a journey to the North Cape or Siberia, and find it in his native Rhön. There is little vegetation, and the inhabitants eke out a scanty sustenance from the cultivation of potatoes ​and flax. The highest inhabited place is Frankenhausen, lying at a height of 2350 ft. with 6383 inhabitants (1900). The nearer (Vordere) Rhön, forming the northern side of the range, is more attractive, with forests and deep and fertile valleys.
See Lenk, Zur geologischen Kenntnis der südlichen Rhön (Würzburg, 1887); Scheidtweiler, Die Rhön und ihre wirthschaftlichen Verhältnisse (Frankfort, 1887); and Daniel, Deutschland (5th ed., Leipzig, 1878).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Mataró

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​MATARÓ (anc. Iluro), a seaport of north-eastern Spain, in the province of Barcelona, on the Mediterranean Sea and the Barcelona-Perpignan railway. Pop. (1900), 19,704. The streets of the new town, lying next the sea, are wide and regularly built; those of the old town, farther up the hill, still preserve much of their ancient character. The parish church of Santa Maria has some good pictures and wood carvings. The wine of the neighbourhood, which resembles port, is shipped in large quantities from Barcelona; and the district furnishes fine roses and strawberries for the Barcelona market. The leading industries are manufactures of linen and cotton goods, especially canvas and tarpaulin, and of soap, paper, chemicals, starch, glass, leather, spirits and flour. The railway to Barcelona, opened in October 1848, was the first to be constructed in Spain. Outside the town is the much-frequented carbonated mineral spring of Argentona.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Mate

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​MATE (a corruption of make, from O. Eng. gemaca, a “comrade”), a companion. In the language of the sea, the mate is the companion or assistant of the master, or of any officer at the head of a division of the crew. In the merchant service the mates are the officers who serve under the master, commonly called the captain, navigate the vessel under his direction, and replace him if he dies, or is disabled. In a war-ship mates serve under the gunner, boatswain, carpenter, &c. They are officers told off to attend to a particular part of the ship, as for example mate of the upper deck, whose duty is to see that it is kept clean, or mate of the hold, who is employed to serve out the water and other stores, and to keep the weights adjusted so as to preserve the trim—or balance—of the ship. (For “mate” in chess, see Chess.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Matera

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​MATERA, a city of Basilicata, Italy, in the province of Potenza, from which it is 68 m. E. by road (13 m. S. of the station of Altamura), 1312 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1901), 17,801. Part of it is built on a level plateau and part in deep valleys adjoining, the tops of the campaniles of the lower portions being on a level with the streets of the upper. The principal building is the cathedral of the archbishopric of Acerenza and Matera, formed in 1203 by the union of the two bishoprics, dating respectively from 300 and 398. The western façade of the cathedral is plain, while the utmost richness of decoration is lavished on the south front which faces the piazza. Almost in the centre of this south façade is an exquisitely sculptured window, from which letters from the Greek patriarch at Constantinople used to be read. The campanile is 175 ft. high. In the vicinity are the troglodyte caverns of Monte Scaglioso, still inhabited by some of the lower classes, and other caves with 13th-century frescoes.
Neolithic pottery has been found here, but the origin of the town is uncertain. Under the Normans Matera was a countship for William Bras de Fer and his successors. It was the chief town of the Basilicata from 1664 till 1811, when the French transferred the administration to Potenza.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Mater Matuta

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​MATER MATUTA (connected with Lat. mane, matutinus, “morning”), an old Italian goddess of dawn. The idea of light being closely connected with childbirth, whereby the infant is brought into the light of the world, she came to be regarded as a double of Juno, and was identified by the Greeks with Eilithyia. Matuta had a temple in Rome in the Forum Boarium, where the festival of Matralia was celebrated on the 11th of June. Only married women were admitted, and none who had been married more than once were allowed to crown her image with garlands. Under hellenizing influences, she became a goddess of sea and harbours, the Ino-Leucothea of the Greeks. In this connexion it is noticeable that, as Ino tended her nephew Dionysus, so at the Matralia the participants prayed for the welfare of their nephews and nieces before that of their own children. The transformation was complete in 174 B.C., when Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, after the conquest of Sardinia, placed in the temple of Matuta a map commemorative of the campaign, containing a plan of the island and the various engagements. The progress of navigation and the association of divinities of the sky with maritime affairs probably also assisted to bring about the change, although the memory of her earlier function as a goddess of childbirth survived till imperial times.
Ovid, Fasti, vi. 475; Livy xli. 28; Plutarch, Quaestiones romanae, 16, 17.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Potto

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​POTTO, the native name of the West African slow-lemurs, popularly miscalled “sloths,” and scientifically known as Perodicticus, a name referring to the aborted condition of the index finger, which forms their most distinctive feature. The ordinary potto (P. potto) is about the size of a squirrel, but with ​large staring eyes, and a mere stump of a tail; its general colour is rufous brown. Bates's potto (P. batesi), of the Congo, is nearly allied; but the awantibo (P. [Arctocebus] calabarensis), of Old Calabar, differs by the complete loss of the tail (see Primates).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Potwalloper

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​POTWALLOPER, or Potwaller, the name of a class of persons who were entitled in certain English boroughs to the parliamentary franchise. The word is usually taken to mean literally “one who boils a pot,” from “wallop” or “gallop,” which Skeat (Etym. Dict., 1898) connects with the Old Low Ger. wallen, to boil, cf. “well,” i.e. which springs or boils up. The “Potwalloper” was defined in Curry's Case, 1838 (Falc and Fitz., p. 311) as “one, whether he be a householder or a lodger, who has the sole dominion over a room with a fireplace in it, and who furnishes and cooks his own diet at his own fireplace.” The Representation of the People Act (1832) reserved these ancient franchise rights to their then holders only. In the Return of Parliamentary Constituencies (Electors, &c.), 1898, there was one “potwalloper” on the register.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Poultice

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​POULTICE, a mass of linseed-meal, bread or other substance, sometimes of medicinal herbs, mixed with boiling water and enclosed in muslin or linen and applied to the skin to reduce inflammation, to induce warmth, or when mixed with mustard, &c., as a counter-irritant. The word seems to have been taken from the plural pultes of the Lat. puls, pottage, pulse, Gr. πόλτος.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Pouched Mouse

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​POUCHED MOUSE, the colonial name for any member of the polyprotodont marsupial genus Phascologale (see Marsupalia). There are over a dozen species, none larger, the most much smaller than a rat. The food of these animals is almost entirely insects, which some pursue among the branches of trees, while others are purely terrestrial. Pouched mice are found throughout Australia, where all the species have uniformly coloured fur, and also in New Guinea and the Aru and some of the adjacent islands, most of the Papuan forms being distinguished by striping on the back. In the view of Oldfield Thomas these marsupials fill the place held in Malaya by the tree-shrews, and in South America by the smaller opossums.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Poughkeepsie

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​POUGHKEEPSIE, a city and the county-seat of Dutchess county, New York, U.S.A., and on the east bank of the Hudson river, 73 m. N. of New York City. Pop. (1910 census), 27,936. It is served by the New York Central & Hudson River, the New York, New Haven & Hartford, the West Shore, the Central New England, and the Poughkeepsie & Eastern (merged in the Central New England) railways, and by river steamboat lines on the Hudson. A cantilever railway bridge, 2260 ft. long (6767 ft., including approaches) and 200 ft. above the water, spans the Hudson at this point. The city is built partly on terraces rising 200 ft. above the river and partly on a level plateau above. On the Hudson here is the course for the intercollegiate boat-races in which the American college crews (save those of Yale and Harvard, which row on the Thames at New London) have rowed annually, beginning in 1895, except in 1896, when the race was rowed at Saratoga. In the north-eastern part of the city is College Hill Park, and in the centre is Eastman Park (11 acres, originally the home of Harvey Gridley Eastman). Vassar College (q.v.), one of the most famous women's colleges in America, occupies extensive grounds a short distance east of the city. Other educational institutions are the Lyndon Hall School (1848) for girls, Putnam Hall (for girls), St Faith's School (Protestant Episcopal; removed in 1904 from Saratoga Springs, where it was founded in 1890), Riverview Military Academy (1836), and Eastman Business College, one of the largest commercial schools in the country, founded in 1859 by Harvey Gridley Eastman (1832–1878). Immediately north of Poughkeepsie is the Hudson River State Hospital for the Insane (1871); in the city are the Vassar Brothers' Hospital (1878), with which a nurses' training school is connected; the Vassar Brothers' Home (1881) for aged and infirm men; the Poughkeepsie Orphan House and Home for the Friendless (1847); the Old Ladies' Home (1870); the Pringle Memorial Home (1899), for aged and indigent men, and the Adriance Memorial Library (45,000 volumes in 1909). The city is a manufacturing centre of considerable importance; the factory products in 1905 were valued at $7,206,914, an increase of 29.2% over 1900.
Poughkeepsie was settled by the Dutch about 1698, taking its name from an Indian word “Apokeepsing,” or “Pooghkepesingh,” which seems to have been the name of a waterfall on the river front. The New York legislature met in Poughkeepsie in 1778, 1780, 1781, 1782, 1788 and 1795, and here in 1788 met the convention which ratified for New York the Federal constitution (July 28). Poughkeepsie was incorporated as a village in 1799 and was chartered as a city in 1854.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Pottstown

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​POTTSTOWN, a borough of Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., on the Schuylkill river, 40 m. N.W. of Philadelphia. Pop. (1910 census) 15,599. Pottstown is served by the Pennsylvania and the Philadelphia & Reading railways, and by electric lines to neighbouring towns. In the borough is the Hill School (1851), an excellent secondary school for boys. There is trade with the surrounding country, which is devoted to farming and dairying and abounds in iron ore and limestone, but the principal industry is the manufacture of iron and steel, the first commercially important iron furnaces in Pennsylvania having been established near the site of Pottstown in 1716-1718. In 1905 the factory products were valued at $8,144,723 (10.7% more than in 1900). Three miles from Pottstown, in an amusement park, are the “ringing rocks,” which cover about an acre, and have varying tones when struck, so that tunes may be played upon them. Pottstown was settled and laid out in 1752 and was named Pottsgrove in honour of its founder, John Potts (1710-1768); in 1815 it was incorporated as a borough and in 1829 the present name was adopted.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Pottsville

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​POTTSVILLE, a borough and the county-seat of Schuylkill county, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., at Schuylkill Gap through Sharp Mountain on the Schuylkill river, about 90 m. N.W. of Philadelphia. Pop. (1910 census) 20,236. It is served by the Pennsylvania, the Lehigh Valley and the Philadelphia & Reading railways, and by the Eastern Pennsylvania railway company to the borough of Minersville (pop., 1910, 7240), about 4½ m. N.N.E., and to the other boroughs in the immediate neighbourhood, for which Pottsville is a business and shipping centre. It is picturesquely situated in the famous Schuylkill coalfield and on the old Schuylkill canal and Tumbling Run, and has a considerable number of summer visitors. There are large repair shops of the Pennsylvania and of the Philadelphia & Reading railways at Pottsville. In 1905 the total value of the factory products was $5,805,788.
The first settlers here, a single family, were massacred by the Indians in August 1780; a second settlement was established about 1795, and an iron furnace was erected a few years later. In 1804 this furnace was purchased by John Pott (1759-1827), the founder of the borough; in 1807 coal was discovered; in 1816 the town was laid out; in 1828 it was incorporated as a borough; and in 1851 the borough became the county-seat. In 1854-1877 Pottsville was a centre of the Molly Maguire disturbances, and here a number of the leaders were tried and convicted in 1876-1877. In 1908 the borough of Yorkville (pop., 1900, 1125) was annexed to Pottsville.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Pounce

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​POUNCE. (1) To drop upon and seize: properly said of a bird of prey seizing its victim in its claws. The substantive “pounce,” from which the verb is formed, was the technical name in falconry for the claws on the three front toes of a hawk’s claws, and so The Book of St Albans (1486) “Fryst the grete Clees behynde . . . ye shall call from talons. . . . The Clees within the, fote ye shall call of right her Pownces.” (2) To decorate metal by driving or punching a design into it from the under or back part of the surface, also to decorate cloth or other fabrics by punching or “pinking” holes, scalloping the edges, &c. Both these words seem to be variants of “punch” (q.v.), which comes ultimately from the Latin pungere, punctum, to prick, pierce. From them must be distinguished (3) “pounce,” a preparation of powdered cuttle-fish or sandarach, the resin of the sandarach-tree, formerly used for drying ink on the roughened surface of vellum, parchment or paper where an erasure had been made; later, the word was also given to the black sand used generally as a dusting-powder for drying ink before the invention of blotting-paper. The “pounce-box” or “pouncet-box” was a familiar object on all writing-tables till that time. A similar box with pierced lid for holding perfumes or aromatic vinegar also bore the name. This word is formed from the Lat. pumex, pumice-stone, which was employed for securing a smooth surface on vellum, parchment, &c. The term “pounce” is also applied to a finely powdered gum of the juniper or to pipe-clay darkened with charcoal used in transferring designs to fabrics, wall-surfaces, &c., through holes pricked in the original drawing.