PIN 



6 1 6O 



PINCKNEY 



capsule containing many three- 

 sided seeds. A variety has the 

 flowers bright blue. 



Pin. Device for fastening 

 objects together, usually textile 

 fabrics. The most usual form of 

 pin consists of a short length of 

 wire pointed at one end and with 

 a head at the other. 



The earliest forms of pins were 

 made of bone or bronze, and speci- 

 mens of these are found in Egyp- 

 tian and Roman remains. Pins 

 of iron wire were made in England 

 in the 15th century, but the 

 greater part of the pin trade was 

 in the hands of France till the 

 17th century, when their manu- 

 facture was taken up in London, 

 Birmingham, and other places. 

 The pins were all hand made, a 

 length of wire being filed to a 

 point, and the head made by twist- 

 ing a piece of fine wire round the 

 other end. Solid-headed pins were 

 introduced in 1797, the head 

 being moulded, and between that 

 date and 1838 various patents 

 were taken out in Great Britain 

 and the U.S.A., leading to the 

 modern method of pin-making. 



Iron, steel, and brass wire are 

 used in modern pins. A cutter 

 cuts off correct lengths from a 

 reel of wire in the pin-making 

 machine, the blank is held by a 

 pair of nippers while the head is 

 punched, the points ground by 

 moving the pin across a circular file 

 revolving at high speed, and the 

 completed pin then falls into the 

 receiving pans. The whole opera- 

 tion is automatic, the only atten- 

 tion the machine requires being 

 the renewal of the reel of wire. 

 Two to four hundred pins a minute 

 are made by each machine. The 

 pin sticking machine holds the pins 

 in rows by their heads, and presses 

 them into crinkled paper. 



Safety pins are made on auto- 

 matic machines which are fed with 

 a continuous strip of metal on the 

 one hand, and with pointed stems 

 on the other. From the strip 

 blanks are cut and these blanks are 

 passed, one at a time, from tool to 

 to A. until, as formed caps, they lie 

 in succession under the fastening 

 tools. In a hopper where the 

 pointed stems have been placed in 

 bulk, a single stem is separated, 

 raised, and carried by a mechanism 

 almost human in its action, to tools 

 which form the head and the coil. 

 These operations completed, the 

 coiled stem is lifted away and 

 pushed head and point into the cap 

 lying beneath the fastening tools. 

 The cap is pressed on to the head, 

 and the completely formed pin 

 thrown out of the machine. Black 

 pins are j apanned by immersion in 

 black enamel. 



In engineering, a pin is a short 

 length of wire or metal rod for 

 holding various parts of ma- 

 chinery together or preventing 

 them from slipping. A split pin 

 is one in which the shank is divided, 

 so that each end can be bent and 

 the pin prevented from falling out 

 of the hole in which it is inserted. 

 See Pins and Pincushions, E. C. 

 Longman and S. Loch, 1911. 



Pina Cloth. Yellowish lawny 

 fabric woven from the leaf fibre 

 of the pineapple plant a.nd allied 

 species. It is made chiefly in the 

 Philippine Islands, and is used for 

 handkerchiefs, scarves, etc. In 

 spite of its delicate appearance it 

 is very strong. 



Pinafore, H.M.S. Comic opera 

 written by W. S. Gilbert, with 

 music by Arthur Sullivan. It was 

 produced at the Opera Comique, 

 London, May 27, 1878, attaining 

 a run of 700 performances. The 

 original cast included George Gros- 

 smith, Rutland Barrington, George 

 Power, and Jessie Bond. 



Pinar del Rio. Province and 

 town of Cuba. The prov., which 

 has an area of 5,212 sq. m., and a 

 pop. of 270,000, produces tobacco, 

 sugar, coffee, and fruit, and has 

 lumber and cattle-rearing indus- 

 tries. On the S. slope of the Cor- 

 dillera de los Organos is the Vuelta 

 Abajo, where is grown the finest 

 tobacco in the world. The town, 

 the capital of the prov., is situated 

 93 m. W. by S. of Havana, with 

 which it communicates by rly. 

 Pop. 10,600. 



Pinch, TOM. Character in 

 Dickens's novel Martin Chuzzle- 

 wit. A man of thirty, modest, 

 open-hearted, and guileless, plain 

 and ungainly in person, he acts 

 as assistant to Mr. Pecksniff, 



Tom Finch, the guileless character 



in Martin Chuzzlewit, in a reverie 



at the organ. From a drawing by 



Fred Barnard 



whose assumption of piety and 

 benevolence completely deludes 

 him. Discovering eventually his 

 master's hypocrisy, he comes to 

 London, where he is engaged as 

 librarian by an unknown bene- 

 factor, later discovered to be old 

 Martin Chuzzlewit. Ruth Pinch, 

 Tom's Bister, a dainty and capti- 

 vating girl, acts as her brother's 

 housekeeper until she marries his 

 friend, John Westlock. 



Pinchbeck. Variety of brass. 

 It was named after Christopher 

 Pinchbeck (d. 1732), a London 

 clockmaker, who is said to have 

 discovered it, although there is no 

 contemporary mention of the 

 fact. His son, another Christopher 

 Pinchbeck (d. 1783), was also a 

 clockmaker who had a number of 

 mechanical inventions to his credit. 

 The best pinchbeck is obtained 

 by an alloy of copper 89 p.c. and 

 zinc 11 p.c. to 93 copper and 7 zinc. 

 Pinchbeck was at one time largely 

 used for the manufacture of cheap 

 jewelry and watch-cases, but has 

 now given way almost entirely to 

 what are known as gold-filled 

 produces. 



Pinchot, GIFFORD (b. 1865). 

 American forestry expert. Born 

 Aug. 11, 1865, he graduated at 

 Yale, studied 

 forestry in 

 Europe, and 

 in 1893 became 

 a consulting 

 forester. En- 

 tering govern- 

 ment service, 

 he was chief 

 of the forestry 

 Gifford Pinchot, department. 

 U.S. forestry expert 1898-1910 

 when he was dismissed by President 

 Taft for insubordination in having 

 criticised a presidential decision 

 which had gone against his de- 

 partment. Later he founded the 

 School of Forestry at Yale. He 

 wrote several technical works, in- 

 cluding The White Pine, 1896; 

 The Timber Trees and Forests of 

 North Carolina, 1897 ; and Primer 

 of Forestry, 1899. 



Pinckney, CHARLES COTES- 

 WORTH (1746-1825). American 

 statesman. Born at Charleston, 

 S. Carolina, 

 Feb. 25, 1746, 

 he was edu- 

 cated in Eng- 

 land at West- 

 minsterSchoo! 

 and Christ 

 Church, Ox- 

 ford, studied 

 law at the 

 Middle Tern- C. C. Pinckney, 

 pie and American statesman 

 afterwards practised in his na- 

 tive town. After serving in the 



