faced for that purpose. Accordingly, a second chamber, with a triangular roof, was constructed in the masonry of the pyramid, 17 feet x 18 feet 9 inches, and 20 feet 3 inches high. This was reached by a passage rising at an inclination of 26° 18', terminating in a horizontal passage. It is called the Queen's Chamber, and occupies a position nearly in the centre of the Pyramid. The monument-probably owing to the long life attained by the monarch-still progressing, a third chamber, called the King's, was finally constructed, by prolonging the ascending passage of the Queen's Chamber for 150 feet further into the very centre of the Pyramid, and after a short horizontal passage, making a room 17 feet 1 inch x 34 feet 3 inches, and 19 feet 1 inch high. To diminish, however, the pressure of the superincumbent masonry on the flat roof, five small chambers were made vertically in succession above the roof, the last one pointed, varying in height from 1 foot 4 inches to 8 feet 7 inches, the apex of the top one being rather more than 69 feet above the roof of the King's Chamber. The end of the horizontal passage was finished in a superior style, and cased with red syenitic granite; and in the King's Chamber was the granite sarcophagus of the king Cheops, 7 feet 6 inches long, 3 feet 3 inches broad, and 3 feet 5 inches high, for whom the Pyramid was built.* As the heat of this chamber was stifling, owing to want of ventilation, two small air-channels, or chimneys, about nine inches square, were made, ascending to the north and south sides of the Pyramid. They perfectly ventilate this chamber.

place in this Pyramid gave rise to various traditions, even in the days of Herodotus, Cheops being reported to lie buried in a chamber surrounded by the waters of the Nile. It took a long time for its construction-100,000 men being employed on it for thirty years, or more probably for above half a century, the duration of the reign of Cheops, which is dated by different chronologists at 3229, 3095, or 2123 B. C. The operations in this Pyramid by General Vyse gave rise to the discovery of marks scrawled in red ochre in a kind of cursive hieroglyphs on the blocks brought from the quarries of Tourah. These contained the name and titles of Khufu (the hieroglyphic form of Cheops); numerals and directions for the position of materials: with them were masonic marks.

The second Pyramid is situated on a higher elevation than the first, and was built by Suphis II., or Kephren, who reigned 66 years, according to Manetho, and appears to have attained a great age. It has two sepulchral chambers, and appears to have been broken into by the Calif Alaziz Othman Ben-Yousouf, 1196 A. D. Subsequently, it was opened by Belzoni. The masonry is inferior to the first, but it was anciently cased below with red granite.

The third Pyramid, built by Menkara, or Mycerinus, who reigned sixty-three years, is much smaller than the other two, being only 218 feet high by 354 feet 6 inches square. It has also two sepulchral chambers, both in the solid rock. The lower sepulchral chamber, which

held a sarcophagus of rectangular shape, of whinstone, had a pointed roof, cut like an arch inside; but the cedar coffin, in shape of a mummy, had been removed to the upper or large apartment, and its contents there rifled. Amongst the débris of the coffin and in the chambers were found the legs and part of the trunk of a body with linen wrapper, supposed by some to be that of the monarch, but by others to be that of an Arab, on account of the anchylosed right knee. This body and fragments of the coffin were removed to the British Museum; but the stone sarcophagus was unfortunately lost off Cartha

After the mummy was deposited in the King's Chamber, the entrance was closed with granite portcullises, and a well made at the junction of the upward-inclined and horizontal passages, by which the workmen descended into the downward-inclined passage, after carefully closing the access to the sepulchral chambers. The changes which took

The opinion that this granite, or porphyry coffer, was a sarcophagus, has been questioned, and the theory has been advanced that it was a standard measure of capacity, of which the British quarter is the fourth part. See J. Taylor's The Great Pyramid; Why was it Built? (1859), and Piazzi Smyth's Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid (1864).

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the vessel in which it to England. The masonry of this Pyramid is most was being transported excellent, and it was anciently cased half-way up with black granite.

and interest at Gizeh; one at Abou Rouash, five There are six other Pyramids of inferior size miles to the north-west of the same spot, is ruined, but of large dimensions; another at more ruined; another at Reegah, a spot in the Zowyet El Arrian, also made of limestone, is still vicinity of Abooseer, also much ruined, and built for the monarch User-en-Ra, by some supposed to be Busiris. There are five of these monuments at Abooseer, one with a name supposed to be that of a monarch of the third dynasty; and another

PY'RENEES, the name of that mountain-range which, separating France from Spain, extends 270 miles in length, and from 30 to 70 miles in breadth, from the Gulf of Rosas, in the Mediterranean, to the south-east corner of the Bay of Biscay. This mountain-system, covering an area estimated at 12,600 sq. m., consists of two great chains, one of which runs east from the Bidassoa to the west bank of the Noguera Pallaresa; and the other, originating in the Pic du Midi d'Ossau (9510 feet), lat. about 0° 25′ W., a little to the north of the former, extends eastward, and, after being intersected at the Val d'Aran by the Garonne and many smaller streams, reaches the Mediterranean, on the shores of which, immediately north of the Gulf of Rosas, it termin

In Assyria, the Birs Nimrud, or Tower of Belus, was a kind of step-shaped Pyramid of seven different-coloured bricks, dedicated to the planets by Nebuchadnezzar. The Mujellibe, another mound, was of pyramidal shape. The Pyramid also entered into the architecture of the tomb of Sardanapalus at Tanus, and of the Mausoleum of Artemisia at Halicarnassus. A small Pyramid, the sepulchre of C. Cestius, imitated from the Egyptian in the days of Augustus, still exists within the wall of Aurelian at Rome. Temples and other monuments of pyramidal shape are found in India, China, Java, the Polynesian Islands, and elsewhere. The Toltecs and Aztecs erected temples in Mexico, called Teocalli, or abodes of gods, of pyramidal shape, with steps or terraces by which to ascend and reach an altar, generally placed on the summit, where they performed human sacrifices and other rites. These, however, are not true Pyramids, the pure and simple form of which is restricted to Egypt. The Pyramid entered extensively into the architecture of the Egyptians, and appears on the tops of obelisks and tombs as a kind of roof. Small models of Pyramids, with inscribed adorations to the sun, or having royal names, were also placed in the tombs.-Lepsius, Ueber den Bau der Pyramiden, 1843; Briefe, pp. 143, 217; Wilkinson, Topogr. of Thebes (Lond. 1835); Vyse, Operations carried on at Gizeh in 1837 (Svo. Lond. 1840—1842); Gliddon, Otia Ægyptiaca (Lond. 1849).

PY'RAMUS AND THI'SBE. The tragical history of these two lovers is told by Ovid in the 4th book of his Metamorphoses. They were natives of Babylon, and tenderly attached to each other, but as their parents would not hear of their marriage, they had to content themselves with clandestine interviews by night. On one occasion they arranged to meet at the tomb of Ninus, where Thisbe, who was first at the trysting-spot, was startled to discover a lioness. She immediately ran off, but in her terror and haste, dropped her garment, which the fierce animal, that had just torn an ox in pieces, covered with blood. Soon after, Pyramus appeared, and seeing his mistress's robe, came to the conclusion that she had been murdered, whereupon he killed himself. Thisbe now returned, and beholding her lover lying dead on the ground, put an end to her own life. The story was a favourite one during the middle ages, when a couple, unhappy in their love, were termed a Pyramus and Thisbe. Shakspeare, in his Midsummer Night's Dream, has introduced it but in a way that has the effect of caricature.

northern slopes of these mountains to the plains and undulating districts of the south-west of France, are of gradual descent; while the southern slopes descend to the mountainous regions of Northern Spain by steep terraces. That portion of this mountain-system in which the eastern part of the southern, and the western part of the northern chains run parallel to each other, is called the High or Middle P.- -a district about 16 miles in length, and forming the wildest and most elevated portion of the whole system. In the south-west of the Middle P. is a series of lofty summits, beginning with the Pic du Midi de Pau (9544 feet), and ending with the barren Maladetta, whose highest point, the Pic de Nethou or Malahite (11,168 feet), is the highest summit in the system. Between these two summits, there are several upwards of 10,000 feet high, as Mont Perdu (10,994 feet). The northeastern and less elevated portion of the Middle P. forms a rampart, frequently interrupted by transverse valleys, and of which the principal summits are the Pic de Gavisos (8170 feet) and the Pic du Midi de Barèges (9307 feet). The Eastern P. rise in their highest summits into the region of perpetual snow, and as far as the sources of the Segre, form a mighty unbroken wall of rock. From this point, however, they assume a different character, decreasing in height, and being intersected by valleys. The West P. nowhere reach the snowline, as their highest summit, the Pic d'Anie, does not rise above 7500 feet. Forming at first ridges of from 6000 to 7000 feet, they decrease in height as they extend west, until, on the Lower Bidassoa, they take the form of isolated masses about 3000 feet high. The average height of the P. is from 6000 to 7210 feet. At an almost equal elevation are most of the mountain-passes. These passes, called in some places cols, in others ports (Span. puerto), are about 100 in number, though only seven of them are practicable for wagons and cannon. The most important are the roads of St Jean de Luz over the Bidassoa to Vittoria, St Jean Pied du Port to Pampluna, and that from Perpignan over Junquera to Gerona. The P. comprise no extensive and long valleys. Generally, the valleys are small and caldron-shaped, and communicate by means of narrow passes. The rivers are inconsiderable. The region of perpetual snow, which, on the northern slopes of the mountains, begins at the height of 8137 feet, and on the southern slopes at 8858 feet, comprises no extensive snow or ice tracts. Glaciers are few and small, and nowhere occur lower than 7800 feet. On the warm and dry southern slopes, no glaciers occur. Few forests exist, and the steep walls of rock, parched by the sun and mid-day winds, are either quite bare, or are covered with low brushwood and meagre pasture. The more gradually declining northern slopes, on which snow and springs are more abundant, shew a richer vegetation, and are for the most part covered

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with lofty forests, and beautiful mountain pasture. Granite forms the kernel of the Pyrenean mountain-system, and is overlaid by chalk and sandstone masses. The P. are not rich in metals, but abound in mineral springs, of which the chief are those of Bagnères de Bigorre (q. v.) and Barèges.

The

PYRÉNÉES, BASSES, a department forming the south-west corner of France. Area 2943 sq. m.; pop. 436,628. The department is divided into the five arrondissements of Pau, Oloron, Orthez, Bayonne, and Mauléon. Chief town Pau. Basses-P. occupies the northern slopes of the Western Pyrenees, offshoots from which divide the department into a number of valleys, cach traversed by a clear mountain stream, locally known as a gave. The chief of these are the Gave d'Oloron, Gave de Pau, the Bidouze, and Nivelle. The high valleys and slopes are generally fertile, and well adapted for the growth of the vine, chestnut, various other fruits, and maize, though not for wheat. The best wines are those of Jurançon and Gau, Pontac and Auberlin. Flax and hemp, rye, barley, oats, and millet are also grown; but the principal source of industry, after the making of wine, is the rearing of horses, cattle, sheep, and mules for the Spanish markets, and the raising of swine in the great beech-forests, together with the preparation of hams of excellent quality and high flavour. Marble, alabaster, slate, ophite, copper, iron, sulphur, and cobalt, constitute the chief mineral products; but their importance as sources of wealth falls short of that of the numerous mineral springs, the most important of which are those of Biarritz, Cambo, Eaux-Bonnes and Eaux-Chaudes.

PYRÉNÉES, HAUTES, a department of France, lying east of the Basses-Pyrenees, is a part of the old province of Gascony. The Hautes-P., which, as its name implies, contains the loftiest summits of the Pyrenean chain, is divided into the three arrondissements of Tarbes, Argèles, and Bagnères, and the chief town is Tarbes. The aspect of the scenery is, moreover, very varied-savage mountains and precipitous rocks in the south, an agreeable diversification of hill with dale in the centre, softening down to fertile plains in the north. The principal rivers, none of which, however, are navigable in the department, are the Adour and the Gave de Pau. The climate is generally mild in the plains and sheltered valleys, but even there, storms are of frequent occurrence. The well-cultivated and artificially watered low lands yield good crops of cereals, leguminous plants, flax, fruits of every kind, including the grape, from which excellent wine and brandy are made. Horses, mules, cattle, sheep, swine, and poultry, are much reared. This department, which is the richest part of the Pyrenees in mineral products, especially marble of various kinds, copper, iron, zinc, lead, antimony, slate, granite, &c., contains also the most celebrated springs, as the sulphur springs at St Sauveur, and the hot-baths of Bagnères, Barèges, and Cauterets. The very limited commercial industry of Hautes-P.

embraces the manufacture of woollen and mixed

fabrics, including bareges, colouring matters, leather, paper, cutlery, &c. There is also an active smuggling trade with Spain.

PYRÉNÉES-ORIENTALES, a maritime department of France, is bounded on the E. by the Mediterranean, and on the S. by the Pyrenees. Area 1592 sq. m.; pop. (1862) 181,763. It is divided into the three arrondissements of Perpignan, Prades, and Ceret. The chief town is Perpignan. Like the two previously described, this department presents a series of parallel valleys formed by spurs from the Pyrenees, but in this case the valleys run east and

west. They are three in number, and are watered by the Gly, Tet (the principal river), and Techs. The south-west corner is drained by the Segre (Segura), a tributary of the Ebro. An extended plain occupies all the north and east of the department. The climate is good, and in the plains is seldom disturbed by great extremes of heat or cold. The vegetable products include fine grain and some of the choicest fruits of this latitude. Wines constitute the wealth of the district, and include the red wines of Roussillon, the white muscatel of The chief Rivesaltes, and other approved kinds. exports are wine, cocoons, the surplus live stock and its products, sardines, anchovies, &c. mineral wealth of the district is not remarkable.

The

PYRITES, a name employed by mineralogists to designate a large group or family of minerals, compounds of metals with sulphur, or with arsenic, or with both. They are crystalline, hard, generally brittle, and generally yellow. The name P. originally belonged to the sulphuret of iron, known as IRON P.; and was given to it in consequence of its striking fire with steel (Gr. pyr, fire), so that it was used for kindling powder in the pans of muskets before gun-flints were introduced. Iron P. is commonly of a bright brass-yellow colour; it is often found crystallised in cubes, in which form small crystals of it are abundantly disseminated in some roofing-slates; and very large ones occur in some of the mines of Cornwall; it is also found crystallised in dodecahedrons and other forms, more rarely in oblique four-sided prisms; and it often occurs massive, globular, stalactitic, capillary, or investing other minerals as an incrustation. Beautiful speciEngland. It is a very widely diffused and plentiful mens of globular iron P. are found in the chalk of mineral, and seems to belong almost equally to all geological formations. It is too abundant in many coal-fields, the action of water and air changing it into sulphate of iron (vitriol), during which change so much heat is evolved that the coal is frequently kindled by it, mines become unworkable, and the by building up portions of them to cut off the progress of the fire can only be stopped, if at all, supply of water. At Quarreltown, in Renfrewshire, access of air, or by the admission of a plentiful a deep hollow may still be seen, where, about a century ago, the ground fell in, in consequence of a subterranean fire thus kindled. The colour of Iron P. has often caused it to be mistaken for gold, a mistake which its hardness and comparative lightness should prevent, or its ready solubility in nitric acid, and its burning before the blowpipe on charcoal with bluish flame and smell of sulphur. But it sometimes does contain a small proportion of gold, sometimes even in visible grains. This auriferous Iron P. is found in Siberia and in South America. Iron P. is never used as an ore of iron, but it is much used for the manufacture of sulphuric acid, and sulphur is obtained from it by sublimation. It is also used for the manufacture of alum. called Marcasite. There is also a magnetic variety. -A variety of Iron P. of a very pale colour is -COPPER P., also called Yellow Copper and Chalcopyrite, is the most abundant of all the ores of copper, and yields a large proportion (perhaps a third) of the copper used in the world. It is brass-yellow, the colour varying with the amount of copper which it contains, a rich colour indicating much copper, and a pale colour the presence of a comparatively large amount of iron; for this ore is not a sulphuret of copper, but of copper and iron. It occurs massive and disseminated in rocks of almost every class; and is often found crystallised in octahedrons and tetrahedrons, but generally in very small crystals. It may at once be distinguished from Iron P. by its

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Bird Cherry (Prunus padus), Juniper (Juniperus communis), Spruce Fir (Pinus abies),

2.92

2.34

2.16

2.14

Scotch Fir (Pinus sylvestris), 42.4 Quick distillation is always found to be much more productive than slow, and the acid is also freer from impurities; for the slower the process, the thicker and darker is the tarry matter. Hence two separate plans have been invented, one by Mr Halliday, and the other by Mr W. H. Bowers, both of Manchester, in which sawdust, chips, shavings, and spent dye-woods are used. In Mr Halliday's plan, the retort is a long tube, with the fire acting along its entire length; inside is an Archimedean screw, worked by machinery, which passes the sawdust or other material slowly from the commencement to the end, where, by a particular contrivance, it falls out in the state of thoroughly carbonised wood. It is supplied by means of a hopper. The volatile matters pass up an outlet-pipe in the upper part of the tubular retort. In Mr Bowers's plan, the principle is similar, though differently carried out, as seen in the wood-cut. a is the hopper through which the sawdust is fed; and it is always kept well supplied, so that, by the pressure of the supply, the escape of vapour may be prevented; ggg is an endless chain worked over the four rollers by a small steam-engine, and carrying the materials from the hopper by means of projections on the chain along the lower side of the retort, so as to bring them in contact with the furnace d, which, after passing along in the direction of the arrow, has its flue at e. By the time the material reaches the bottom, all the volatile matters have been vaporised, and have passed up into the condenser at ff, and the carbonised material falls into a cistern of water at c, into which the open end of the retort dips, the water closing it

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sufficiently. One of these retorts will yield about 200 gallons per day of pyroligneous acid. This acid is of great use in the arts, especially in making

a

the acetates used by dyers and calico printers; and it is also, when very carefully purified and properly diluted with water, used extensively as a substitute for common vinegar in pickling, and even for table use.

PY'ROMANCY. See DIVINATION.

PYROMA'NIA is an involuntary, motiveless tendency to destroy by means of fire. The blind before reason or a knowledge of property can actuate instinct to burn is often manifested in children them, and with no other object than mischievous tion. In a large number of the cases, where legal destructiveness, or to enjoy the blaze of a conflagrainvestigation has disclosed the mental condition of the incendiary, and where the motive could not be determined, or was obscure or inadequate, the perpetrators were youthful, of the female sex, and about the period of puberty. It is to be observed that the most remarkable example in modern times of this morbid tendency appearing epidemically, was presented in Normandy in 1830, where barns, granges, and vineyards over a large tract of country were consumed, and where the actors were exclusively girls. When apprehended in numbers, they confessed that, though prompted by internal sensations, they had no other explicable purpose than to see the light. But this is the pure and typical form of the propensity. In general, insane incendiarism is the result of, or is complicated with, a very obvious incentive. Jonathan Martin, being insane, but impelled by superstition, set fire to York Minster (1829); and passions and delusions of every character, personal and political antipathies, and the this kind of desolation. Like other outbursts of spirit of agrarian outrage, may seek gratification in frenzy, it has been observed to accompany famines, pestilences, and great social convulsions.-Feuchtersleben, p. 293; Marc, De la Folie, t. ii. p. 305.

PYROMETER (Gr. pyr, fire, and metron, a measure) is a term originally applied by Muschenbroek in 1731, to an instrument which he invented for measuring the changes produced in the dimensions of solid bodies by the application of heat. It is, however, now applied to any instrument the object of which is to measure all gradations of temperature above those that can be indicated by the Mercurial Thermometer (q. v.). Desaguliers gives a description of Muschenbroek's instrument, as improved by himself, in his Experimental Philosophy. Numerous pyrometers have since been invented, amongst which may be noticed those of Ellicott (described in The Philosophical Transactions for 1736 and 1751), Graham (in Do. for 1754), Wedgwood (in Do. for 1782, 1784, and 1786), and Guyton (in the Annales de Chimie, tome 46). None of these instruments, however, gave accurate results for very high temperatures; and it was not till the year 1821 that Professor

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