PILSEN 



4675 



PIN 



The name is derived from its habit of ac- 

 companying ships and shark >: its close com- 

 panionship with the latter has excited much 

 comment, many observers believing that it 

 guides the shark to its food. It swims close 

 in front of the shark, but probably does this 

 for the purpose of feeding on fragments which 

 the lamer fish scatters, and to secure protection 

 from its enemies. It is believed that the pilot 

 fish is never attacked by its giant friend. By 

 the ancients it was regarded as sacred, as they 

 thought it directed lost sailors, and by suddenly 

 disappearing announced that land was not far 

 distant. 



PIL'SEN, a city in Bohemia, noted for its 

 famous Pilsener beer. The municipal brewery 

 occupies one quarter of the city, and its cellars 



nd for miles. Pilsen is about sixty-eight 

 miles southwest of Prague, and ranks next to 

 that city in size among the cities of Bohemia. 

 well built, and has beautiful promenades 

 and several notable structures. The church of 

 Saint Bartholomew, with its spire 335 feet high, 



- back to the thirteenth century; the Ren- 

 aissance Town Hall contains the hall in which 

 Wallenstfin received from his generals the oath 

 of fidelity. The first printing press in Bohemia 

 was set up in Pilsen. In addition to the brew- 

 eries, there are glass works, copper works, bell 

 foundries and manufactories of paper, pottery, 

 leather, wire and vehicles. Population in 1914, 

 e.-nmated to be 84300. 



PIMA, j)< ' nidfi, a tribe of North American 

 Indians living in the Gila River and the Salt 

 ions in Southern Arizona. Ruins 

 of pueblos on the south bank of the Gila indi- 

 cate that at one time they lived in adobe 

 houses, which were never rebuilt after destruc- 

 n\e wars with the Apaches and other invading 

 tribes. They have since lived in dome-shaped 

 huts made of bent tree boughs, plastered over 

 with mud. From earliest times the Pima have 

 irrigated their fii Ids, running canals from the 



: and distributing tin water by means of 

 dit.hes and rude dams. They raise crops of 

 wheat and corn and tlie mast common v 



> s, and use the beans of tin nati\> mesquite 

 for food. The women of the tnl-. who do all 



i- work except plowing and XAVIIILV 

 -killful in the making of water-tight bas- 

 kets. 

 Tl I'im.i Indians are a peaceful nil 



wan th. j :< of 



xceedmgly nkilful with the 

 bou I d thrm until 



mbe number' about 1.200. 



PIMENTO, pimen'toh, the popular name of 

 a small evergreen tree of the myrtle family, 

 from which is obtained a spice known as all- 

 spice, Jamaica pepper or pimento. The name 

 is derived from pimienta, the Spanish word for 

 peppercorns, to which the spice bears a resem- 

 blance. The tree grows to a height of from 

 twenty to thirty feet; occasionally it is forty 

 feet tall. The slender, upright trunk has many 

 branches at the top and is clothed in a smooth, 

 gray bark. The shining green leaves are lance- 

 shaped; they contain an essential oil, and are 

 aromatic when fresh. 



The flowers are small, white and fragrant, and 

 bear four greenish-white petals, and numerous 

 white stamens, which are longer than the p- 

 The fruit is a small berry, black, glossy, sweet 

 and juicy when ripe, and about the size of a 

 black currant. It is the unripe berry that is 

 used for the spice of commerce, for the fruit 

 loses much of its aromatic property by matur- 

 ing. The process of preparing the berries for 

 the trade is described in the article ALLSPICE. 



The pimento plant is native to the West 

 Indies, flourishing most abundantly in Jamaica, 

 where the greater part of the commercial spice 

 is obtained. The tree also occurs in Mexico. 

 Costa Rica and Venezuela. The pimento be- 

 gins to flower when from seven to ten years old, 

 and reaches maturity about ten years later. 

 The weather during the fruiting season greatly 

 affects the size of the crop, but under favorable 

 conditions some trees yield 150 pounds of fresh 

 berries, or 112 pounds of dried ones. Tin- 

 yearly export from Jamaica is about 11,275,000 

 pounds, two-thirds of which is sent to England. 



PIN. A pin is such a commonplace dovic. 

 that we never consider its value until we are 

 sorely in need of one. Nevertheless, there arc 

 over 47,339,000 gross of toilet pins made in tin- 

 United States alone every year, and to these 

 must be added 1,200,000 gross of hairpins and 

 1,640,000 gross of safety pins, if we consider t lu- 

 pin industry in it.* entin ty. The value of the 

 entire output is about $900,000 a y 



Hut pins wen- not always so plentiful 

 j> as they are now. According to tradition 

 was a time when the people of England 

 were taxed to provide the queen with money to 

 buy pins. This same tradition tells us tint it 

 was from this custom that the term pin m. 

 was <: lie this as it may, we know that 



thorns, pointed sticks, bones and 

 other articles were used for pins. In Egyptian 

 tombs, pins of bronze, highly ornamented, b 

 been found, some of them six or eight inchc 



