PITCH LAKE 



6177 



PITT 



which secretes a sweet fluid, whose 

 obvious purpose is to attract in- 

 sects. From the mouth to a vari- 

 able distance downwards the inner 

 wall is polished, and affords no 

 foothold for insects that have been 

 attracted within. They fall into 

 the liquid which partly fills the 

 pitcher. This liquid has digestive 

 properties capable of reducing 

 boiled white of egg, raw meat, 

 or cartilage. It digests the hosts 

 of insects that visit the pitcher. 

 The flowers are small and greenish. 

 See Californian Pitcher Plant. 



Pitch Lake. Famous lake of 

 pitch in Trinidad. Situated near 

 the S.W. coast, close to the village 

 of La Brea, it is of circular shape, 

 a little more than 100 acres in 

 area and about 3 m. in circum- 

 ference. Always more or less soft 

 in hot weather, the pitch in the 

 middle of the lake is liquid and can 

 be seen bubbling. The annual 

 yield exceeds 100,000 tons. 



Pitchstone. In geology, name 

 given to a glassy igneous rock, re- 

 markable for the amount of con- 

 tained water in its composition. 

 It is lustrous, and dark grey -green, 

 brown, or nearly black in colour. 

 The best specimens are found 

 in Arran in Scotland, and near 

 Meissen in Saxony. See Obsidian. 



Pitea. River of N. Sweden. It 

 rises in two lakes S. of Mt. Sulite!- 

 ma, and, flowing S.E., enters the 

 Gulf of Bothnia in a bay containing 

 the Isle of Pitholm. Its length is 

 about 200 m. The small town of 

 Pitea is on the coast some 30 m. 

 S.W. of Lulea. 



Pitesti. Town of Rumania, in 

 Wallachia. It is 65 m. by rly. N.W. 

 of Bukarest, and is a rly. junction 

 on the Argesul (q.v.). Pop. 16,000. 



Pithecanthropus erect us. 

 Erect apeman. The systematic 

 name was given by Eugene Dubois 

 in 1894 to some fossil bones, in- 

 cluding the roof of a skull, three 

 teeth, and a thigh bone, which ho 

 discovered near Trinil, Java. The 

 earliest anthropoid with human 

 characters yet known, it is held to 

 represent a collateral rather than 

 an ancestral or missing-link stage 

 in human development. The age 

 of the deposits is early Pleistocene 

 or late Pliocene. See Anthropo- 

 logy; Ethnology; Man. 



Pithom. Store city built by the 

 Hebrews, according to biblical 

 tradition, for the Pharaoh of the 

 Oppression (Exodus 1). It was the 

 Egyptian Pa-Tum, and Naville's 

 excavations in 1883 localised it at 

 Tell el-Maskhuta, 11 m. W. of 

 Ismailia. Rectangular brick struc- 

 tures having access only through 

 the roof were regarded by Naville 

 as storehouses, but by later ex- 

 cavators as fort-platforms. The 



earliest inscriptions are of Rameses 

 II, but evidence is accumulating 

 that the Pharaoh of the Oppression 

 was Thothmes III. See Egypt. 



Pitlochry. Tourist resort of 

 Perthshire, Scotland. It is on the 

 left bank of the Tummel. on the 



motion, and a second tube, also 

 open to the fluid, but with the 

 opening facing at right angles to the 

 line of motion. Both tubes are 

 thus subject to any steady static 

 pressure on the fluid, and the 

 first one is in addition subject 



Pitlocbry, Perthshire. General view, showing the hydropathic establishment 



Highland Rly., 28m. N.W. of Perth. 

 Its bracing climate and picturesque 

 mountainous surroundings have 

 made it a well-known summer 

 resort, and there is a large hydro- 

 pathic establishment. Tweed manu- 

 facture and distilling are carried on. 

 Overlooked by Ben-y-Vrackie, it 

 is at the southern end of the Pass of 

 Killiecrankie (q.v. ), and near by are 

 the Falls of Tummel. Pop. 1,700. 



Pitman. Name given to a 

 connecting-rod for transmitting 

 motion in some kinds of heavy 

 machinery, such as stone-breakers. 

 Pitman, SIB ISAAC (1813-97). 

 Inventor of the phonographic 

 system of shorthand known as 

 Pitman's. Born 

 at Trowbridge, 

 Wilts., Jan. "4. 

 1813, he be- 

 came a school- 

 master in 1832 

 at Barton- 

 on - H u m b e r, 

 whence in 1836 

 he went to 

 Wotton-under- 

 Edge, Glouces- 

 tershire, where he established a 

 private school, and where he taught 

 Taylor's shorthand and published 

 his first shorthand treatise, Steno- 

 graphic Sound Hand, 1837. In 1831) 

 he opened a private school at Bath, 

 where he erected a printing press, 

 started The Phonetic Journal, 

 later known as Pitman's Journal, in 

 1842, and laid the foundation of 

 the publishing business of Sir 

 Isaac Pitman and Sons. He was 

 an ardent advocate of spelling 

 reform. Knighted in 1894, he died 

 Jan. 22, 1897. See Shorthand; 

 consult also Lives, T. A. Reed, 1890, 

 and A. Baker, 1908. 

 ^ Pitot Tube. Apparatus de- 

 vised by a French scientist named 

 Pitot for the measurement of the 

 speed of moving fluids or of motion 

 through fluids. It consists essen- 

 tially of one tube with an open end 

 facing the direction of the fluid's 



to an added pressure due to the 

 momentum of the fluid impinging 

 on its open end. If a delicate pres- 

 sure gauge is connected with the 

 two branches of a Pitot tube so as 

 to register the difference of pressure 

 between them, the reading of the 

 gauge is a measure of the speed of 

 the impinging fluid, if the density 

 of the fluid is already known. 



A development of the Pitot tube, 

 known as the pitometer, is ex- 

 tensively used for testing the flow 

 of water in water-mains and de- 

 tecting leakages. Pitot tubes, in 

 conjunction with pressure gauges, 

 are extensively used in aeronautical 

 engineering for measuring the Gpeed 

 of air currents in experimental 

 work, and for measuring the air 

 speed of aircraft in flight. 



Pitt, THOMAS (1653-1726). Brit- 

 ish merchant. Born at Bland- 

 ford St. Mary, Dorset, July 5, 

 1653, he first figures in the East 

 Indian trade in 1675, when the 

 company's officials resented his 

 presence on the Hooghli as an in- 

 fringement of their monopoly. Dis- 

 regarding orders to leave India, he 

 established a house at Balasor, 

 and bought extensively for ex- 



__ port. In 1695 



he joined the 

 company's staff 

 and was gov- 

 ernor of Madras, 

 1698-1709, dur- 

 ing which period 

 he purchased for 

 20,000 the Pitt 

 diamond, which 

 Thomas Pitt, he sold for 

 British merchant 1 35,000 to the 

 duke of Orleans 



He was several times M.P. for 

 Salisbury, Old Sarum, and Thirsk. 

 In 1716 he was appointed governor 

 of Jamaica, but resigned before 

 leaving England, and died April 

 28, 1726. He was the grandfather 

 of the earl of Chatham. See Diary 

 of William Hedges, Hakluyt So- 

 ciety's reprint, ed.H. Yule, 1887-89. 



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