PRUSSIC ACID 



4S56 



PSYCHE 



Dusseldorf 



Elberfeld 



Ems 



Erfurt 



Essen 



Frankfort-on-the-Main 



Frankfort-on-the-Oder 



Halle 



Hanover 



Kiel 



Konigsberg 



Krefekl 



Magdeburg 



MUnster 



OsnabrUck 



Posen 



Potsdam 



Stettin 



Wiesbaden 



Wittenberg 



HISTORY 



Bismarck-SchOnhausen, Hohenzollern 



Prince Holy Roman Empire 



Frederick I and II Poland 



Frederick William, the Seven Years' War 



Great Elector Succession Wars 



Frederick William I, William I 



III and IV 



PRUSSIC ACID, or HYDROCYANIC ACID, 



prus'ik, hidrosian'ik, a compound of hydro- 

 gen and cyanogen (which see). It is called 

 prussic acid because it was first obtained from 

 Prussian blue. The pure acid is a clear liquid, 

 so volatile that if a drop of it is placed on glass 

 a part of the drop will be frozen by the cold 

 produced by the rapid evaporation of the liq- 

 uid. Prussic acid has the odor of peach blos- 

 soms or bitter almonds, and is one of the most 

 poisonous substances known in either liquid or 

 gaseous form. A drop placed in the eye will 

 cause almost instant death. Its most impor- 

 tant compound, potassium cyanide, is exten- 

 sively used in extracting gold from ore by the 

 cyanide process. See GOLD; METALLURGY. 



PSALMS, sahmz, one of the books of the 

 Old Testament, containing the religious poetry 

 of the Hebrews, including the hymns and pray- 

 ers used in public worship. There are 150 

 psalms, divided into five books, each of which 

 ends with a doxology, as: 



Blessed be Jehovah, the God of Israel, 

 From everlasting to everlasting, 

 Amen and Amen. 



The Psalms are recognized by all critics as 

 perfect lyric poems, both in their form, which 

 is largely that of parallelism, and in their out- 

 pouring of the finest emotions of the human 

 soul. The Twenty-third Psalm, written by Da- 

 vid in remembrance of his early life among the 

 sheepfolds, beginning, "The Lord is my shep- 

 herd, I shall not want," can probably be re- 

 peated by more people than any other frag- 

 ment of .poetry. Psalm CXXI, given below 

 (according to the Revised Version), illustrates 

 the simple yet lofty style of the Psalms: 



I will lift up mine eyes unto the mountains : 

 From whence shall my help come? 

 My help cometh from Jehovah, 

 Who made heaven and earth. 



He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: 

 He that keepeth thee will not slumber. 

 Behold, he that keepeth Israel 

 Shall neither slumber nor sleep. 



Jehovah is thy keeper : 



Jehovah is thy shade upon thy right hand. 

 The sun shall not smite thee by day, 

 Nor the moon by night. 



Jehovah shall keep thee from all evil ; 

 He shall keep thy soul. 



Jehovah shall keep thy going out and thy com- 

 ing in, 

 From this time forth and forevermore. 



The authorship of the Psalms is a matter of 

 dispute. Popularly they are believed to be 

 largely the work of David. See BIBLE, subhead 

 The Old Testament, page 705. 



Consult Prothero's The Psalms in Human Life; 

 Schmidt's The Messages of the Poets. 



PSEUDO-SCIENCES, su'doh. See SCIENCE 

 AND THE SCIENCES, subhead Pseudo-Sciences. 



PSYCHE, si'ke, in Greek mythology a prin- 

 cess whose beauty was so great that it aroused 

 the jealousy of the goddess Venus, who called 

 her son Cupid and ordered him either to kill 

 Psyche or to make her fall in love with some 



PSYCHE AT NATURE'S MIRROR 

 From the painting by Hulmann. 



hideous wretch. When the youthful god saw 

 the beautiful maiden, he fell in love with her 

 himself and made her his wife. He kept her in 

 a beautiful palace and visited her every night, 

 but she never saw him, for he had told her that 



