PICOTEE 



PICTS 



167 



after death in the habit of the order. Mirandola 

 was the last of the schoolmen. He endeavoured 

 to reconcile the Catholic theology with medheval 

 philosophy, and his works are a bewildering coiu- 

 iiound of mysticism, scholasticism, and recondite 

 knowledge. He interpreted the Mosaic text by 

 the Neoplatonic doctrine of the microcosm and the 

 macrocosm, and maintained that in natural magic 

 lay the strongest testimony to the truth of the 

 Gospels. He appealed to the authority of the 

 Cabbalists and Pythagoreans as well a to the 

 Apostles; he exhibited, along with a childlike 

 credulity, an argumentative ingenuity worthy of 

 'ilie subtlest schoolman. He was a humanist as 

 well as a theologian, and was the author of various 

 Latin epistles and elegies and of a series of Horid 

 Italian sonnets. His writings are of littje value, 

 but the magic of his personality survives. A 

 theologian and an erotic poet, a philanthropist, a 

 -'liolar. and a traveller, an adherent at once of 

 Duns Sootus and of I'olitian, he was one of the 

 most chivalrous, generous, and versatile of men; 

 liis character i- as engaging as it is curious and 

 complex. 



See (}. P. dfUa Mirandola, his life by his nephew 

 < trans, by Sir Thomas More; Nutt, Lend. 1890), and 

 Pater's btudifx in the Renaissance. 



Piootee. See CARNATION. 



I'irinn t. See PlQt'ET. 



PU-ric Acld(Trinitrophenol), C.H^NO.^OH. 



This sulistance appears in the form of pale yellow 

 Crystalline scales. It i* obtained by the action of 

 nitric acid on phenolsulphonic acid. Equal parta 

 of phenol and concentrated sulphuric acid are 

 mixed together, and placed in a suitable ve--.fl, 

 which ist heated till the mixture reaches 212' F. 

 ( 100 C.). Nitric acid of the specific gravity 1-3 is 

 then added. On cooling, a crystalline mass is pro- 

 duced which is filtered and drained. A washing 

 with cold water follows, and then the picric acid is 

 further purified by reerystiillising it from water 

 containing a small proportion irl per cent.) of 

 sulphuric acid. Picric acid is easily soluble in hot, 

 but only slightly in cold water. It is also soluble 

 in alcohol and ether. Its taste is intensely bitter, 

 and its tinctorial power is very great, the solutions 

 of it having a strong yellow colour (see DVKINC. 

 Vol. IV. p. 141). It lias lieen much used foi -dyeing 

 silk, woof, and leather. As it does not adhere by 

 itself to vegetable fibre, it serves for a test to dis- 

 tinguish eotton from wool or silk. The presence 

 of cut ton in a mixed fabric can therefore be detected 

 by steeping it in a hot solution of the acid, ami 

 afterwards washing it. Then, with the aid of a 

 microscope, the difference l>etween the wool or silk, 

 both of which retain the dye, and the cotton, 

 which floes not, will be made clear. The salts of 

 picric acid are a very important ingredient in ex- 

 nloshes I ,ee MELINITE, GfN -COTTON, SlIKLL). 

 It was formerly called ( 'arba/otic Acid. 



Pi<*rite<> one of the peridotites or olivine-rocks. 

 It is particularly rich in olivine. The other prin- 

 cipal minerals are augite and plagioclase. Mag- 

 netite or ilinenite, or liotli are generally present. 

 Biotite occur* not infrequently, and apatite occa- 

 sionally. The ruck i- often more or less altered 

 into serpentine. 



Pil'let. AiMiu'HK (17!t!l IH7-~>). a native of 

 Geneva, and a writer on the Celts and the primi- 

 tive Aryan-. To the same Genevese family belong 

 Marcus Aiigustc I'ictet i 17~>--l,s-J.~, physicist; 

 Francois Jules I'ictet (1809-72), zoologist and 

 pahi'ontologNt ; and Kaoul Pictet, chemist and 

 physicist, known in connection with the lique- 

 faction of oxygen. 



I'irloli. SIR THOMAS, British general, was born 

 in August 1758, at Poyston in Pembrokeshire, 





entered the army as ensign in the 12th Foot in 

 1772, and two years later joined his regiment at 

 Gibraltar. In 1794 he went out to the West Indies, 

 and was given a command under Sir John Vaughan. 

 He took part in the conquest of several islands of 

 the West Indies, including Trinidad, and was 

 appointed ( 1797) governor of the last named, being 

 shortly afterwards raised to the rank of general. 

 In 1803 lie was superseded, but immediately after 

 appointed governor of Tobago. He found it 

 necessary, however, to return to England, to take 

 his trial on a charge of having permitted, under the 

 old Spanish laws, a female prisoner to be tortured. 

 He was found guilty of sanctioning unlawful 

 torture ; but on appeal he was in a new trial 

 acquitted. He saw active service again in the 

 Walcheren expedition (1809), and was made 

 governor of Flushing after its capture by the 

 English. Early in the following year he was sum- 

 moned to Spain, and put in command of the 'Fight- 

 ing Division,' and with it rendered brilliant service 

 at Busaco, during the sul>sequent expulsion of the 

 French from Portugal, at Fuentes de Onoro, at the 

 sieges of < 'unhid Hodrigo and Badajoz, at Vittoria 

 ana in the battles of the Pyrenees, at Orthe/ and 

 before Toulouse. Napoleon's escape from Elba 

 once more called Picton into the Held ; he fought 

 at Quatre Bra* and was wounded, but kept the 

 fact hidden that he might not miss the great day 

 he saw coming, and he fell leading his men to the 

 charge at Waterloo, 18th June' 1815. See Memoirs 

 of Sir T. Picton, by H. % B. Robinson (2 vols. 1835). 



Pictou, a port of entry on the north coast of 

 Nova Scotia, on a large and sheltered harbour, 

 IS.") ( by rail 114) miles NNE. of Halifax. The town 

 contains several mills and factories, and coal, mined 

 in the vicinity, is exported. Pop. (1891) 2999. 



Plots. Thi- is the name by which, for five and 

 a half centuries (296-844 A.D.), the people that 

 inhabited eastern Scotland from the Forth to the 

 Pentland Firth were known. In the Irish chronicles 

 they are generally styled Picti, Pictones, Pictores, 

 or Piccardaig all forms of the same root ; but 

 sometimes the native Gaelic name of Cnithnig is 

 applied to them, and their country is called Crui- 

 then-tuath, the equivalent of Latin Pictavia and 

 Old Norse Pettland, which still survives in the 

 name of the Pentland Firth. There were Cruithni 

 or ('milling also in Ireland never, however, called 

 Picti. They formed the petty kingdom of Dal- 

 araide (County Down and part of Antrim) and 

 bordered on the Irish Dalriada ; and, as the king- 

 lets of Uith these provinces were contemporary with 

 the whole extent of Pictish rule, much confusion 

 is thereby caused as to what refers to Scotch and 

 what to Irish Cruithnig in the annals. Other Irish 

 Cruitlmig appear sporadically, not to say. enig- 

 matically, in Meath and in Itoscommon. There does 

 mil -eem to have been any difference in language. 

 and customs between these Irish Cruithnig and 

 the rest of the people of Ireland, at least in historic 

 times. They were probably early invaders from 

 Britain belonging to the Pictish race. 



The Piets are first mentioned in connection with 

 the campaigns of Constantiiis Chlorus in Britain 

 in 296 and 306. Euineniiis, his panegyrist, speaks 

 of 'Caledonum aliorumque Pictorum silvas et 

 paludes' (the Caledonians and other Picts), which 

 implies the inclusion of the former in the latter 

 people. Caledonia is the name given by Tacitus 

 to Scotland north of the Firths of Forth and Clyde, 

 and he describes the Caledonians as a noble race of 

 barbarians, who light in chariots as well as on foot, 

 with long swords and short shields, and whose 

 fair red hair and large limbs argued a German 

 origin. Ptolemy (120) places fourteen tribes in 

 Tacitus' Caledonia, inclusive of the Caledonians 



