308 



1'ONT 



PONTIFKX 



offices under Augustus II. ami Augustus III. His 

 BOO STANISLAS AUGUSTUS (1732-98) was the last 

 king of 1'nliiinl ( a. v.). JOSEPH ANTONY, son of 

 Andrew, brother of king Stanislas Augustus, was 

 comimuuler of the Polish legion in the army of 

 Napoleon. He. was born at Warsaw, Ttli May 

 17tW, and trained in the Austrian army. In 1789 

 the Polish Assembly appointed him commander-in- 

 chief of the army of the south, with which he 

 gained brilliant victories over the Russian invaders 

 (1792); but the convention of Targowice (see 

 POLAND) put an end to the contest in 1793. On 

 the outbreak of the following year he joined the 

 army as a volunteer, but Kosciusko put him in 

 command of the division charged to defend Warsaw 

 on the north. On its fall he withdrew to Vienna. 

 In 1806 the Prussians evacuated Warsaw before 

 the invasion of the French ; and when the duchy of 

 \Vaisaw was constituted (1807) Poniatowski was 

 ap|>ointed minister of war and commander-in-chief 

 for the duchy. In 1809, in the course of the war 

 between Austria and France, he invaded Galicia, 

 after having previously retired before stronger forces. 

 Three years later he joined, with a large body of 

 Poles, the French army in its invasion of Russia, 

 and rendered distinguished service at Smolensk and 

 Borodino, but more especially in the great battle 

 of Leipzig (1813), when he valiantly held his 

 ground on the right wing of the French battle- 

 array. Napoleon rewarded him by making him 

 marshal of France. After the battle he was left to 

 cover the retreat of the French army, and, whilst 

 attempting to swim his horse over the liver Elster 

 to join the main body of his troops, he perished in 

 its waters, 19th October 1813. His body was 

 recovered, taken to Warsaw, and in 1816 removed 

 to Cracow, and placed beside the ashes of BoUedd 

 and Kosciiisko. See (German) Biography by 

 Boguslawski (Cracow, 1831). 



Pont, TIMOTHY (c. 1560 -r. 1630), a pioneer 

 in Scottish geography and map-making, was the 

 son of Robert Pont (1524-1806), a celebrated 

 Edinburgh minister. He graduated at St Andrews 

 in 1584, was minister of Ihinnet in Caithness 

 (1601-), and in 1009 subscribed for 2000 acres 

 of forfeited hinds in I Utcr. 'He was,' says 

 Bishop Nicholson, 'by nature ami education a 

 complete mathematician, and the first projector 

 of a Scotch atlas. To that great purpose he per- 

 sonally surveyed all the several counties and i-les 

 of the kingdom -. look draughts of 'cm upon the 

 spot, and added such cursory observations on the. 

 monuments of antiquity and other curiosities as 

 were proper for the furnishing out of future 

 descriptions. He was unhappily surpris'd by 

 death;' but his collections were rescued from 

 destruction and oblivion by Sir John Scott of 

 Scotetarvet, and his maps at last appeared in 

 Blaen's magnificent Theatrum Orbis Terrnrmn 

 (vol. v. Amst. 1654). See Dobie's Cunninghame 

 Topograpftited by Timothy I'ont ( 1876). 



Poll lac. an old name for a kind of red Bordeaux 

 wine, from a family owning large vineyards. 



Poilt-Ji-Moiisson, a town of France (dent, 

 llenrtheet Moselle), on the Moselle, 18 miles SSE. 

 of Metz, with a 13th-e. Gothic church. Pop. 1 1,261. 



Poillarller, a French town (dept. Doubs), 35 

 miles SE. of Besancon, on the main Jura route 

 from Switzerland to France. Pop. 6709. 



Pontrhartrain. LAKE, in Ix>uiiana, about r 

 miles N. of New Orleans, is 40 miles long and 25 

 wide, and communicates with the Gulf of Mexico. 

 The drainage of New Orleans (q.v.) is carried into 

 tin- l.-ike through canals. 



PontCCOrVO, a city of the Italian province of 

 rta, on the river Garigliano, 37 miles NW. 



.turn, with .)]"/- inliaiiitants. It has an old 

 athedral and a castle. It was long attached to 

 he States of the Church. Napoleon I. gave the 

 i i le of Prince of Pontecorvo to Marshal Bernadotte, 

 ill ei wards king of Sweden. 



Ponta Delgada, the largest town of the 

 Azores (q.v.), on the south coast of Sao Miguel. 

 Pop. 17,940. 



Pontefract, or POMFRET, a pleasant market- 

 town in tin- West Riding of \orkshire, on an 

 eminence near the influx of the Calder to the Aire, 

 13 miles SK. of Leeds, 8 E. by N. of Waketield, 

 and 14 NNW. of Doncaster. It stands on the line 

 of a Roman road, but seems to have arisen round 

 ts Norman castle, which, founded about 1071) by 

 llbert de Lacy, was the scene of the execution or 

 murder of the Earl of Lancaster (1322), Richard II. 

 (1400), and Earl Rivera ( 1483), was taken in the 

 Pilgrimage of Grace ( 1536), and during the Great 

 Rebellion sustained four sieges, being finally dis- 

 mantled in 1649, after its capture by Lambert. 

 There are two old churches, a town-hall (rebuilt 

 IT'.Mi), a market-hall (1860), a grammar-school of 

 Edward VI. (1549), and large market-gardens and 

 nurseries, the growing of liquorice for the lozengeB 

 called ' Pomfret cakes ' being a specialty as old as 

 alxmt 1562. At Ackworth, 3 miles south, is a large 

 Quaker school ( 1778). Pontefract, called Taddenes- 

 scylfin pre-Conquest times, seems to have received 

 its present name between 1086 and 1135. Why is 

 uncertain, but there is a very full discussion of this 

 difficult question in Notes and Queries for 1886-87. 

 The borough, which was chartered by Richard III., 

 lost one of its two members in 1885. Pop. of 

 parliamentary borough (1851), 11,515; (1881) 

 14,767 ; ( 1891 ) 16,407, of whom 9702 were within 

 the municipal lioundary. 



See works by Paulcien (1702), Tetlow (1769), and 

 Boothroyd(1807). 



PontOVOdra, a cathedral town of Spain, in 

 Galicia, at the head of a bay, 30 miles S. of 

 Santiago. Cloth and hats are manufactured, and 

 there are sardine-fisheries. Pop. 19,857. The pro- 

 vince has an area of 1695 sq. m. and a pop. (1887) 

 of 443,385. 



Pontiar, capital of Oakland county, Michigan, 

 on Clinton River, surrounded by many small and 

 beautiful lakes, 26 miles by rail NNW. of Detroit. 

 It contains a state reform school and a large 

 asylum for the insane, which cost nearly $500,000, 

 and ha* flour and planing mills, foundries, and 

 brickyards. Pop. (1880) 4509; (1900) 9769. 



routine, chief of the Ottawa Indians, in 1746 

 defended Detroit for the Krench, and was saiil to 

 have led his warriors at Hraddock's defeat in 17.">">. 

 After the French had surrendered Canada, liis 

 hatred of the English prompted him to organise a 

 conspiracy among the Indian tribes with a view to 

 the extermination of 'those dogs dressed in red.' 

 The 7th of May 1763 was appointed for the attack, 

 which in eiglit eases wax successful, and I he 

 garrisons were massacred ; but at Detroit, where 

 Pontiac led in person, the commander was fore- 

 warned, and a uve months' sii-c ensued. Peace 

 was made in 1 TM. Pontiac himself was murdered 

 in 1769 by a Kaskaskia Indian, at Cahokia, Illi- 

 nois, opposite St Lonis. See Parkman, Th, < 

 VH nttil of Pontiac ( 1851 ) ; and a Diary of the Siege 

 ,,/ DttTMt, ed. by F. B. Hough (1860). 



Pontlanak, capital of the western division of 

 Dutch Borneo, near the mouth of the river Kapuiis, 

 on the west side of the island. It has some fora 

 licat ions, and a lively trade. Pop. 5000. 



Pontifex, the title Imrne by the members of 

 one of the two great colleges among the ancient 

 Romans, instituted for the purpose of preserving 



