pnugues/EB7 huggingface dataset:
PILUM, a missive weapon used by the Roman soldiers, and in a charge hurled against the enemy. Its point, we are told by Polybius, was so long and small, that after the first discharge it was generally so bent as to be rendered useless. The legionary soldiers made use of the pilum, and each man carried two. The pilum underwent many alterations and improvements, insomuch that it is,impossible to describe it with any precision. Julius Scaliger laboured much to give an accurate account of it, and would have esteemed success on this head amongst the greatest blessings of his life-Marius made a material improvement on the pilum ; for during the Cimbrian war, he so contrived it, that when it stuck in the enemy’s shield it bent down at an angle in the part where the wood was connected with the iron, and thus became useless to the person who received it.
PILWARA, a town of Hindustan, in the province of Ajmere, and district of Oudipore, belonging to the ranah. Long. 74. 25. E. Lat. 25. 19. N.
PIMENTO, Jamaica Pepper, or Allspice, a species of myrtus. The pimento trees grow spontaneously, and in great abundance, in many parts of Jamaica, but more particularly on hilly situations near the sea, on the northern side of that island, where they form the most delicious groves that can possibly be imagined.

“This tree is purely a child of nature, and seems to mock all the labours of man in his endeavours to extend or improve its growth; not one attempt in fifty to propagate the young plants, or to raise them from the seeds, in parts of the country where it is not found growing spontaneously, having succeeded. The usual method of forming a new pimento plantation (in Jamaica it is called a walk), is nothing more than to appropriate a piece of woodland, in the neighbourhood of a plantation already existing, or in a country where the scattered trees are found in a native state, the woods of which being fallen, the trees are suffered to remain on the ground till they become rotten and perish. In the course of twelve months after the first season, abundance of young pimento plants will be found growing vigorously in all parts of the land, being without doubt produced from ripe berries scattered there by the birds, whilst the fallen trees, &c. afford them both shelter and shade. At the end of two years it will be proper to give the land a thorough cleansing, leaving such only of the pimento trees as have a good appearance, which will then soon form such groves as those already described, and, except perhaps for the first four or five years, require very little attention afterwards.

“Soon after the trees are in blossom, the berries become fit for gathering; the fruit not being suffered to ripen on the tree, as the pulp in that state, being moist and glutinous, is difficult to cure, and when dry becomes black and tasteless. It is impossible, however, to prevent some of the ripe berries from mixing with the rest; but if the proportion of them be great, the price of the commodity is considerably injured.

“It is gathered by the hand; one labourer on the tree, employed in gathering the small branches, will give employment to three below, who are generally women and children, in picking the berries; and an industrious picker will fill a bag of 70 lbs. in the day.

“The returns from a pimento walk in a favourable season are prodigious. A single tree has been known to yield 150 lbs. of the raw fruit, or one hundredweight of the dried spice, there being commonly a loss in weight of one third in curing; but this, like many other of the minor productions, is exceedingly uncertain, and perhaps a very plentiful crop occurs but once in five years.”
PINACIA, amongst the Athenians, were tablets of brass inscribed with the names of all those citizens in each tribe who were duly qualified and willing to become judges of the court of Areopagus. These tablets were cast into a vessel provided for the purpose, and the same number of beans, a hundred being white and all the rest black, were thrown into another. Then the names of the candidates and the beans were drawn out one by one, and they whose names were drawn out together with the white beans were elected judges or senators. In Solon’s time there were only four tribes, each of which chose a hundred senators; but the number of tribes being afterwards increased, that of senators and judges was also increased to so many hundreds more.
PINAGRA, a town and fortress of the south of India, in the district of Baramahal, ninety-five miles east by south from Seringapatam. Long. 78. 8. E. Lat. 12. 6. N.
PINCHBECK, a factitious metallic substance, or an alloy of three parts of zinc and four of copper.
PINDAR River, a small river of Northern Hindustan, in the province of Serinagur, which afterwards joins the Alcananda.
PIND l’ARUK, a small village of Hindustan, in the Gujerat peninsula, situated in a sandy plain. There is a spring of pink-coloured water in the vicinity, which is celebrated amongst the natives as a place of pilgrimage.
PINEDA, John, an historian of some note, was descended of a noble family, and born at Seville. He entered into the society of the Jesuits in 1572, and taught philosophy and divinity in several collcges, but devoted his time chiefly to the study of the Holy Scriptures. That he might render this study the more easy, he made himself master of the oriental languages. Of his writings we have, 1. Commentaries upon the book of Job, two vols. in folio; 2. Commentaries upon Ecclesiastes; 3. A general History of the Church, in Spanish, four vols. in folio; and, 4. A History of Ferdinand III. in the same language, in folio. He died in 1637, much regretted by the members of his society, and by the public in general.
PINEROLO, one of the provinces into which the continental part of the kingdom of Sardinia, in Italy, is divided. It is bounded on the north and north-west by Susa, on the east by Turin, on the south by Saluzzo, and on the west by France. It extends over 550 square miles, and contains one city, forty-six towns and villages, with 125,000 inhabitants. A portion of the Cottian Alps is comprehended in this province, in which are found the four valleys of Lucerna, Perosa, San Martino, and Pragelato, which were inhabited by the Waldenses. The district is well watered by several streams, the principal of which, the Clusone, receives the other river. Though for the most part mountainous, the valleys are productive, and there is sufficient corn raised for the consumption of the inhabitants, whilst silk, chestnuts, and turpentine serve the purpose of exchange for the few foreign commodities that are needed. The capital of the province is the city of the same name. It is situated at the foot of the Alps, and is the see of a bishop, whose sumptuous cathedral, with six monasteries and five nunneries, are the most distinguished objects. It contains 11,500 inhabitants, who spin wool and silk, manufacture goods of both materials, and trade also in corn, wine, cattle, and charcoal. It was formerly the residence of the Dukes of Savoy, most of whom were buried in it. Long. 7. 8. E. Lat. 44. 53. N.
PINES, Island of, in the South Pacific Ocean, near the southern point of New Caledonia. It is about eighteen leagues in circumference. Long. 167.32. E. Lat. 22. 38. S.
PINET, Antony du, an ecclesiastical writer, who lived in the sixteenth century, and was a native of Besançon, in France. He was strongly attached to the Protestant religion, and a bitter enemy to the church of Rome. His book, entitled La Conformité des Eglises Reformées de France et de l’Eglise Primitive, printed at Lyons, 1564, in 8vo, and the notes which he added to the French translation of the Fees of the Pope’s Chancery, which was printed at Lyons in 8vo, 1564, and reprinted at Amsterdam in 1700, in 12mo, plainly discover his sentiments. The last-mentioned work he published under the title of La Boutique du Pape, in Latin and French, with some notes taken from decrees, councils, and canons, in order to ascertain the discipline anciently observed in the church. In the epistle dedicatory he assumes the tone of a declared enemy of the court of Rome. FI is translation of Pliny’s Natural History, printed at Lyons in two vols. folio, 1566, and at Paris, 1608, was formerly much read. Though it contains many errors, it is nevertheless very useful, especially for those who do not understand the Latin, on account of the translator’s researches, and a great number of marginal notes. Pinet also published at Lyons, 1564, in folio, Plans of the principal Fortresses in the World.
PING-LIANG, a city of China, of the first rank, in Shensee, in a fruitful and well-watered district. Long. 106. 18. E. Lat. 35. 35. N.
PINGLO, a city of China, of the first rank, in the province of Quangsee, situated amongst mountains, and on a river which is scarcely navigable from the number of waterfalls which interrupt its course. Long. 110.4. E. Lat. ∙ 24. 22. N.
PINION, in Mechanics, an arbor or spindle, having in the body of it several notches, which catch the teeth of a wheel that serves to turn it round; or it is a lesser wheel that plays in the teeth of a larger.*
PINNACE, a small vessel navigated with oars and sails, and having generally two masts, which are rigged like those of a schooner.
PINNACLE, in Architecture, the top or roof of a house, terminating in a point. This kind of roof amongst the ancients was appropriated to temples; their ordinary roofs being all flat, or made in the platform fashion.
PINOS, an island of the Atlantic, situated near the south coast of Cuba, from which it is separated by a channel sixteen leagues in length by six in breadth. It abounds in pastures, which are covered with herds of goats and other animals; and it is likewise noted for the size of its trees. Although Pinos possesses several very secure and well-sheltered roads, and is of tolerable size, being forty- ’ ^ two miles in length and thirty-four in breadth, yet it is only inhabited by a few fishermen. Long. 82. 45. W. Lat. 21. 38. N.
PINSK, a city of Russia, in the government of Minsk, the capital of a circle of its own name. It is situated on the river Pina, surrounded with deep morasses, and is built in the style of all the old Polish towns. It contains several Greek and Catholic churches, and had a very large collegiate establishment of the Jesuits. It contains 4500 inhabitants, of whom many are Jews, and carries on a considerable trade in the finest red leather. It is 767 miles from St Petersburg. Long. 25. 45. E. Lat. 52. 8. N.
PINTOR, Peter, a physician, was born at Valentia in Spain, in the year 1420, and became physician to Alexander VI. whom he followed to Rome, where he practised with great success. He left behind him two works of considerable merit; 1. Aggregator Sententiarum Doctorum de Curatione in Pestilentia, printed at Rome in 1499, folio; and, 2. De Morbo Foedo et Occulto his Temporibus Affligenti, printed at Rome in 1500, 4to, black letter, a book extremely scarce, and which traces the lues venerea to the· year 1496. Pintor died at Rome in the year 1503, aged eighty-three.
PIOMBINO, an ancient principality in Italy, now one of the provinces of the grand duchy of Tuscany. It is 136 square miles in extent, and contains one city and eleven villages, with 13,900 inhabitants. The princely house, though mediatized, continues to hold the proprietorship, as before 1815. It is a marshy and very unhealthy tract of country. The capital is the city of the same name, situated on the Bay of Fullonica. It is slightly fortified towards the sea only, and contains 1200 inhabitants, mostly occupied in the fisheries. Long. 10. 25. 42. E. Lat. 42. 55. 27. N.
PIONEERS, in the art of war, are persons who are ordered in from the country, to march with an army, for the purpose of mending the roads, working on intrenchments and fortifications, and forming mines and approaches.
PIOVE di Sacco, a town of Austrian Italy, in the province of Milan and delegation of Padua. It is situated on the Canal of Fiumecello, and contains 790 houses, and 5640 inhabitants, engaged in making silk goods and tanning leather. Long. 11. 57. 11. E. Lat. 45. 17. 21. N.
PIP, or Pep, a disease amongst poultry, consisting of a white thin skin or film, which grows under the tip of the tongue, and hinders their feeding. It usually arises from want of water, or from drinking puddle-water, and eating filthy meat. It is cured by pulling off the film with the fingers, and rubbing the tongue with salt. Hawks are particularly liable to this disease, from their feeding on stinking flesh.
PIPERS, a musical term, now applied to performers on the bagpipe. Thus we have Northumbrian pipers, Irish pipers, Calabrian pipers, Scottish pipers, &c. The bagpipe seems to be one of the most ancient of musical instruments. It had various names in ancient times and in different countries. Boccacio introduces it as a fashionable instrument in his Decameron; and, from the accounts of the household expenses of our British monarchs, we find that the bagpiper was a court-musician in the olden time. In Strutt’s Sports and Pastimes of the People of England, we find a bagpipe player on stilts, from an illuminated [7:17:749]manuscript of the thirteenth century, in the reign of Henry III.; and another bagpiper of the same century, with a girl dancing upon his shoulders. Some of the most curious representations of bagpipers and their instruments (chori or corti) are given by Gerbert De Cantu et Musica Sacra, plates thirty-three and thirty-four of the second volume.
PIPLEY, a small town of Hindustan, in the province of Orissa and district of Mohurbunge. It is situated on the eastern bank of the Subanreeka River, about ten miles from the sea. It was with this port, which was considered one of the best in Bengal, that the English were permitted to trade by Shah Jehan; but the trade was afterwards transferred to the Hooghly River. The floods have now washed away part of the town, and formed a dangerous bar ,in the river, in consequence of which the merchants have removed to Ballasore. Pipley is twenty-two miles northeast from Ballasore. Long. 87. 25. E. Lat. 21. 42. N.

Pipley, a town in the province of Orissa and district of Cuttack, thirty miles south from Cuttack. Long. 86. 8. E. Lat. 20. 8. N.
PIPLOUD, a town and large mud fort of the Mahratta territories, in the province of Khandesh, thirty·one miles north-east from Boorhanpoor. Long. 76. 35. E. Lat. 21. 44. N.
PIRAEUS Portus, in Ancient Geography, a celebrated port to the west of Athens, consisting naturally of three harbours or basins, which lay neglected till Themistocles put the Athenians on making it a commodious port; the Phalerus, a small port, and not far from the city, being what they used before that time.

The Piraeus, as Athens flourished, became the common emporium of all Greece. Hippodamus, an architect, celebrated as the inventor of many improvements in housebuilding, besides other monuments of his genius, was employed to lay out the ground. Five porticos, which, communicating with one another, formed the Long Portico were erected by the ports. Here was an agora or marketplace, and, farther from the sea, another called hippoda∙ [7:17:750]mia. Beside the vessels were dwellings for the mariners. A theatre was opened, temples were raised, and,the Piraeus, which surpassed the city in utility, began to equal it in dignity. The cavities and windings of Munychia, natural and artificial, were filled with houses; and the whole settlement, comprehending Phalerus and the ports of the Piraeus, with the arsenals, the storehouses, the famous armoury of which Philo was the architect, and the sheds for three hundred, and afterwards four hundred, triremes, resembled the city of Rhodes, which had been planned by the same Hippodamus. The ports, on the commencement of the Peloponnesian war, were secured with chains. Centinels were stationed, and the Piraeus was carefully guarded.

The Piraeus was reduced with great difficulty by Sylla, who demolished the walls, and set fire to the armoury and the arsenals. In the civil war it was in a defenceless condition. Calenus, lieutenant of Caesar, seized it, invested Athens, and ravaged the territory of the state. Strabo, who lived under the Emperors Augustus and Tiberius, observes, that the many wars had destroyed the long walls, with the fortress of Munychia, and had contracted the Piraeus into a small settlement by the ports and the temple of Jupiter Saviour. See Athens.
PIRANO, a city of the Austrian government of Trieste, in the district of Capo d’Istria. It stands on a tongue of land in the Bay of Trieste, and contains 895 houses, with 6800 inhabitants, who are chiefly employed in the fisheries, or in making salt on the lagunes in their vicinity. Long. 13. 29. 4. E. Lat. 45. 29. 22. N.
PIRATE, πειξατης, a sea-robber, or an armed ship which roams the seas without any legal commission, and seizes or plunders every vessel she meets indiscriminately, whether friends or enemies.
PIRHALA, a town of Hindustan, in Lahore, tributary to the Afghan sovereigns of Caubul. It lies fifty-five miles east from the Indus. Long. 71.48. E. Lat. 32. 25. N.
PIRNA, a city of the kingdom of Saxony, in the circle of Meissen, and the capital of a bailiwick of its own name, which comprehends eleven cities and towns, and 170 villages, with 36,250 inhabitants. The city is situated upon the banks of the Elbe, is surrounded with walls, and contains three churches, an orphan-house, an hospital, and 500 houses, with about 6000 inhabitants. It suffered much in the campaign of 1813, when it was the centre of the operations between the French and the allied armies; but it rapidly recovered, and is now the seat of considerable manufactures of cotton goods, and has a good trade on the river Elbe, both in building vessels and in conveying goods. A little above the city is the fine castle of Sonnenstein, now occupied as a lunatic asylum.
PIROMALLI, Paul, a Dominican of Calabria, was sent as a missionary to the East. He remained a long time in Armenia, where he had the happiness to bring back to the church many schismatics and Eutychians, and even the patriarch himself, who had before thrown every obstacle in his way. He afterwards passed into Georgia and Persia, then into Poland, in quality of nuncio to Pope Urban VIII., in order to appease the disturbances which had been occasioned there by the disputes of the Armenians, who were very numerous in that country. Piromalli united them in the profession of the same faith, and the observance of the same ceremonies. On his return to Italy he was taken by some corsairs, who carried him prisoner to Tunis. As soon as he was ransomed he went to Rome, and gave an account of his mission to the pope, who conferred upon him some signal marks of his esteem. His holiness intrusted him with the revisal of an Armenian bible, and sent him again into the East, where he was promoted, in 1655, to the bishopric of Nashirvan. After having governed that church for nine years, he returned to Italy, and took charge of the church of Bassignano, where he died three years afterwards, in 1667. His charity, zeal, and other virtues, did honour to the episcopal office. There are extant of his writings, 1. Some works of Controversy and Theology; 2. Two Dictionaries, the one a Latin-Persian, and the other an Armenian-Latin; 3. An Armenian Grammar; and, 4. A Directory, which is of great use in correcting Armenian books.
PIRON, Alexis, a French poet, was born at Dijon in July 1689, where his father was an apothecary, and where he passed more than thirty years in idle and destructive dissipation. He was at length obliged to quit the place of his nativity, in order to avoid the reproaches of his fellowcitizens, on account of an ode which he had written, and which gave them great offence. His relations not being able to give him much assistance, he supported himself at Paris by means of his pen, the strokes of which were as beautiful and fair as those of an engraver. He lived in the house of M. de Belleisle as his secretary, and afterwards with a financier, who, however, did not know that he had a man of genius under his roof. His reputation as a writer commenced with some pieces which he published for the entertainment of the populace, and which showed strong marks of original invention; but what fully established his character in this way was his comedy entitled Métromanie, which was the best that had appeared in France since Regnard’s Gamester. This performance, in five acts, well conducted, and replete with genius, wit, and humour, was acted with the greatest success upon the French stage in 1738. Piron, however, had a sufficient stock of self-conceit; and what helped to increase it, and make him fancy himself superior to the most celebrated of his contemporaries, was the circumstance that, on account of his original humour, of which he had an uncommon share, his company was more courted than that of Voltaire, who was otherwise too lively, captious, and crabbed. Piron’s mischievous ingenuity was partly the cause which excluded him from the French Academy. “I could not,” said he, “make thirty-nine people think as I do, and I could less think as thirty-nine do.” He called that celebrated society “les invalides du bel esprit,” and yet he often endeavoured to become one of those invalids. He died on the 21 st of January 1773, at the age of eighty-three. He had prepared for himself the following characteristic epitaph;

Ci gît Piron, qui ne fut rien, Pas même académicien.

A collection of his works appeared in 1776, in seven vols. 8vo and nine vols. 12mo. The principal pieces are, The School of Fathers, a comedy acted in 1728 under the title of Ungrateful Sons; Callisthenes, a tragedy, the subject of which is taken from Justin; The Mysterious Lover, a comedy; Gustavus and Ferdinand Cortez, two tragedies, some scenes of which discover an original genius, but the versification neither pleases the ear nor affects the heart; Métromanie, a comedy; The Courses of Tempe, an ingenious pastoral, in which the manners both of the town and country are pleasantly drawn; with some odes, poems, fables, and epigrams. In this last kind of poetry he was very successful, and he may be placed after Marot and Rousseau; but there was no occasion for loading the public with seven volumes of his works. The half of that number might have sufficed; for, excepting Métromanie, Gustavus, the Courses of Tempe, some odes, about twenty epigrams, three or four fables, and some epistles, the rest are but indifferent, and have no claim to any extraordinary merit.
PISA, a portion of Italy, once an independent state, but now one of the provinces of the grand duchy of Tuscany. It forms the north-west portion of that duchy, except a small part of Arovalle, and the whole sea-coast to the cape of the Apennines, which divides it from Maremma. In it is included also the Isle of Elba with its dependencies, and [7:17:751]the ancient duchy of Piombino. It extends over 2614 square miles, is divided into three districts, and contains 345,000 inhabitants. The capital is the city of the same name, situated near the mouth of the river Arno, in a marshy and unhealthy district, arising from its being enclosed on all sides by the moisture of Paduli del Lupo, Paduli di Stagno, and of the water of the Serchio. It is surrounded with thick walls, now converted into promenades, for which purpose they are better adapted than for defence. It is the see of an archbishop, whose cathedral and palace are magnificent structures; the tower of the former has attracted much attention, and been called the hanging tower, because it considerably declines from the perpendicular. There is a university, founded in 1309, which at present is resorted to by about 300 students, and has a library of 60,000 volumes. It is frequented by invalids, on account of some warm baths on Monte Giuliano, near the city. Pisa contains 2000 houses, and about 18,000 inhabitants, who make some linen and woollen cloths, some silk goods, with glass, paper, white lead, vitriol, and alabaster articles, but depend mostly on the invalid visitors. Long. 10. 18. 10. E. Lat. 43. 43. 7. N.