PIZZICATO 



Atahualps was in the neighbour- 

 hood with an army of 40,000 men. 

 To attack him openly with less than 

 200 men was out of the question, 

 but Pizarro posted his men and his 

 two culverins carefully in Caja- 

 marca, and enticed Atahualpa to 

 visit him in state. At a given 

 signal the Inca king was seized, 

 the Spanish guns opened fire, and 

 the handful of Spanish horse 

 threw themselves between the 

 king's company and the line of 

 communication with tire main 

 army. The ensuing fight was merely 

 a massacre. Atahualpa submitted 

 and promised the Spaniards a vast 

 store of treasure if they would 

 restore to him the authority under 

 which they were now professing 

 to act. Nevertheless, fearing inter- 

 nal revolution, he gave orders for 

 the execution of his brother Huas- 

 car. Pizarro seized his opportunity ; 

 Atahualpa was denounced and exe- 

 cuted ; while another member of the 

 royal family was set up as a puppet 

 emperor. 



Almagro was now arriving with 

 reinforcements. The empire was 

 partitioned, Pizarro taking the 

 northern governorship while Al- 

 magro went south and made him- 

 self master of Chile. No effective 

 resistance was offered to the 

 conquerors until an Indian in- 

 surrection broke out in 1536. It 

 was crushed next year by the aid 

 of Almagro, between whom and 

 Pizarro there then arose a contest 

 for supremacy. Pizarro's brothers 

 defeated and killed Almagro in 

 1538, but three years later 

 Almagro's foHowers took their 

 revenge, and Pizarro was sur- 

 prised and assassinated on June 26, 

 1541. See Atahualpa; Lima; 

 consult also Life of Pizarro, with 

 account of his Associates, A. 

 Helps, 2nd ed. 1869. 



Pizzicato (It., pinched). Effect 

 produced on string instruments by 

 plucking the strings with the 

 fingers, the resultant sound having 

 a dry and evanescent quality of 

 tone. See Harp. 



Placard (Fr., from plaquer, to 

 plaster). Originally, an official or 

 public document, under seal, and 

 corresponding to a licence. Hence, 

 an edict, proclamation, or notice, 

 posted up in a public place, and, 

 generally, a bill or poster. Placard 

 or placart was the name of a plate 

 of armour worn over or under the 

 cuirass ; also, in the 15th and 16th 

 centuries, of an article of dress. 



Place Bill. Name given in 

 England to a measure designed to 

 exclude placemen, i.e. holders of 

 office under the crown, from Par- 

 liament. The first of many was 

 introduced in 1692, but none of 

 them has become law. 



Place Names. Geographical 

 and topographical designations. 

 Their study, long the sport of 

 amateurs, was hardly placed on 

 a scientific basis until the 20th 

 century. A branch of philology, it 

 is a valuable aid to the historian 

 and ethnologist, elucidating the 

 movements and boundaries of 

 nations and tribes. In all ages 

 curiosity about place names has 

 given rise to popular etymologies, 

 e.g. Gen. xi, 9. Legends arise 

 through mistaken derivations, as 

 with Pilatus (q.v.) ; Maidenhead, 

 connected with a story of a 

 martyred virgin, but probably 

 meaning timber wharf or hithe. 

 It is seldom safe to <*uess the mean- 



Pizairo. White marble urn with glass front, in the 

 cathedral of Lima, Peru, where the remains of Fran- 

 cisco Pizarro were placed, June 28, 1891 



ing from the modern form. Thus, 

 Bridgewater means Burgh Walter ; 

 Strangeways, stiff mud ; Slaughter- 

 ford, sloe-tree ford ; while Milford 

 and Fairfield are probably Norse 

 names, meaning sandy fiord and 

 sheep fell. 



While in Germany place names 

 show the limits of Celtic and Slav 

 settlement, in Spain we can trace 

 the Iberians, Celts, Phoenicians, 

 Romans, Goths, and Arabs by 

 such names as Bilbao, Siguenza, 

 Cadiz, Zaragoza, Burgos, and 

 Guadalquivir respectively. In 

 .England a few river names are 

 probably pre-Celtic, but most are 

 Celtic, e.g. Avon, Exe, Dove, Adur, 

 Wey, Thames, etc., as are many 

 names of hills, Penygant, Brown 

 Willy, Helvellyn, etc., and towns 

 like London, Dover, York. 



The great majority of English 

 names of towns and villages con- 

 tain the name of the man or 

 family that founded the settle- 

 ment, e.g. Brighton, Brihthelm's 

 stone ; Hildersham, Hilderic's 

 home ; Hoxton, Hocca's enclosure. 

 Family or tribal names end in the 



PLACER 



countries, occur rarely in England. 

 Most other remaining English place- 

 names are plain prosaic descrip- 

 tions of the locality Among 

 the commonest endings are caster, 

 cester, Chester, Roman fortress ; 

 ton, enclosed settlement ; ham, 

 homestead (sometimes pasture) ; 

 wick, ivich, village ; bottle., building ; 

 stead, place ; throp, trop, village ; 

 worth, worthy, wardine, holding or 

 farm ; stow, place ; ern, house ; 

 hope, enclosure, also hollow ; hall, 

 haugh, river meadow ; holm, lea, 

 ley, meadow ; hurst, wood ; den, 

 wooded valley; combe, valley; 

 borne, bach, bech, brook ; bergh, 

 don, low, law, hill ; or, over, er, 

 bank ; and words like wood, field, 

 ford, stone, cot. 



Norse names end 

 in by, thorp, vil- 

 lage ; toft, farm ; 

 argh, ergh, shelter; 

 thwaite, clearing ; 

 with, wood ; dale, 

 valley ; beck, gill, 

 stream; force, 

 waterfall ; Ice Id, 

 child, spring ; wide, 

 creek ; forth, fiord ; 

 holm, y, ay, island ; 

 fell, mountain, how, 

 mound. The 

 Norman- French 

 element is repre- 

 sented by such 

 names as Bungay, 

 bon gue, good ford ; 

 Grampound, grand 

 pont, great bridge ; 

 repeir, fair resort ; 



Belper, bel 



Bewdley, beau lieu, fair place. The 

 name of the Norman owner was 

 often added to that of the village, 

 e.g. Hucknall Torkard. See Name ; 

 consult also British Place-names in 

 their Historical Setting, E. McClure, 

 1910; The Place-names of England 

 and Wales, J. B. Johnston, 1915. 



A. B. Gougli 



Placenta (Lat., cake). Mass of 

 tissue adherent to the inside of the 

 uterus or womb and connected, 

 for nutritive purposes, by the um- 

 bilical cord with the foetus or grow- 

 ing organism. It is also called the 

 after-birth. See Obstetrics. 



Placentia Bay. Deep inlet of 

 Newfoundland. It is on the S. 

 coast and is 75 m. long and 60 m. 

 across its entrance. A long, narrow 

 isthmus separates it from Trinity 

 Bay. The chief harbour is Pla- 

 centia. See Newfoundland. 



Placer. Name given to alluvial 

 gravel in which gold and tin ore 

 deposits occur very frequently. 

 Gold occurs in the metallic form in 

 placers, while tin occurs as 

 cassiterite (tin dioxide). Placers 



patronymic -ing, as in Dorking, are divided into two classes, super- 

 Kettering. The names of saints, ficial and deep-lying. The former 

 exceedingly common in Celtic are recent and owe their origin to 



