authors selected for the task. 

 Principal among these are collec- 

 tive works, such as encyclopedias, 

 which often require the employ- 

 ment of hundreds of collaborators, 

 and much careful planning and 

 organization, and also individual 

 works planned to satisfy special 

 interests. In this way publishers 

 may be able to stimulate study and 

 render invaluable services to 

 education, progress, and national 

 efficiency. The Dictionary of 

 National Biography ; the part 

 publications of The Amalgamated 

 Press, Ltd. ; and in older days the 

 Bohn Libraries are instances of 

 such enterprise. 



The bookseller's business can be 

 roughly divided into four parts : 

 (1) That of the wholesale book- 

 seller, who buys in considerable 

 quantities from the publisher, em- 

 ploys travellers and resells to the 

 smaller firms, and enables them to 

 buy small supplies on credit; (2) 

 That of the export bookseller and 

 shipper, who buys to supply 

 chiefly the colonial and continental 

 markets, and who receives special 

 discounts to defray export expenses, 

 including carriage, insurance, and 

 duty.etc.; (3) The regular retailer ; 

 and (4) The second-hand book- 

 seller. The last two alone affect 

 the general reader. 



The regular retailer is the real 

 distributor to the public of aU new 

 publications, and the better estab- 

 lishments also carry a considerable 

 stock of standard books, but very 

 few establishments in Great Britain 

 come up to the best standard of 

 bookshops abroad. Few stock any 

 but English books, or at the out- 

 side a few French novels, while 

 there are on the Continent many 

 booksellers who stock selections of 

 the literature of most European 

 countries. The bigger booksellers 

 in London and the larger pro- 

 vincial towns, especially university 

 towns, have fair stocks of standard 

 books available, but there are very 

 few booksellers in Great Britain 

 who have sufficient knowledge of 

 literature to advise their clients in 

 regard to the best selection of books 

 for any special study. Both in 

 Great Britain and America very 

 showy bookshops have been opened 

 in recent years. Many 01 the 

 American shops are superior to the 

 British shops of this class, but the 

 British bookseller is often better, 

 educated. 



Second-hand booksellers have 

 generally a wider acquaintance 

 with literature than any others, 

 for their purchases necessitate very 

 considerable bibliographical know- 

 ledge. Their business is done 

 chiefly through the distribution of 

 catalogues and by correspondence, 



639O 



and some British second-hand 

 catalogues are of great value and 

 excellence, praise which cannot be 

 I -stowed on British bibliographical 

 publications in general. See Books 

 and their Makers during the 

 Middle Ages, 1896-97, and Authors 

 and Publishers, new ed. 1897, 

 G. H. Putnam. 



Puccini, GIACOMO (1858-1924). 

 Italian composer. Born at Lucca, 

 Dec. 23, 18"58, he studied under 

 local teachers, 

 and in 1877 

 produced a 

 cantata, Juno. 

 He worked at 

 Milan conser- 

 vatoire, 1880- 

 83, and in 1884 

 his o n e - a c t 

 opera, L e 



Villi, was produced. His first 

 great success was with Manon Les- 

 caut, staged at Turin, 1893, and its 

 triumph was outdone by that of 

 La Boheme, founded on H. Mur- 

 ger's novel, 1896. His other works, 

 the best of which are in the reper- 

 tory of most great opera houses, 

 are La Tosca, 1900 ; Madama But- 

 terfly, 1904 ; The Girl of the Golden 

 West, 1910 ; La Rondine, 1917 ; 

 and II Tabarro, Suor Angelica, and 

 Gianni Schicchi, one-act operas, 

 1918. Puccini took the place left 

 by Verdi as leader of the Italian 

 operatic tradition. His master- 

 piece is probably La Boheme. He 

 died Nov. 29, 1924. 



Puck OR ROBIN GOODFELI.OW. 

 Mischievous, friendly fairy of Eng- 

 lish folklore. Puck, or a word of 

 similar sound Irish puca, Welsh 

 pwcca, Swedish pojke, Old Norse 

 puki, Low German pook is asso- 

 ciated with a merry, familiar 

 house spirit in the folklore of many 

 peoples, and there is a curious 

 parallel among the Red Indians of 

 North America, for among the 

 Algonquins Puckwudjinies signi- 

 fied the little vanishing people. 

 Puck is an important character 

 in Shakespeare's A Midsummer 

 Night's Dream. 



Puck of Pook's Hill. Volume 

 of stories, a blend of fairy tale, 

 legend, and history, interspersed 

 with poems by Rudyard Kipling, 

 published in 1906. Two children 

 playing on Pook's Hill are suddenly 

 confronted by Puck, presiding 

 genius of the place, who makes 

 them figure in successive episodes 

 from the days of the mythical Way- 

 land's forge to Elizabethan times. 



Pudding Lane. A London 

 thoroughfare. It is a narrow way 

 running S. out of Eastcheap to 



PUDDLING 



Lower Thames Street. The Great 

 Fire of 1666 is said to have origin- 

 ated in a house in this lane. See 

 Great Fire. 



Pudding Stone. In geology, 

 name given to a rock consisting of 

 the water-worn debris of other 

 rocks. See Conglomerate. 



Puddling. Name given to a 

 process for converting cast iron into 

 malleable or wrought iron. In- 

 vented by Henry Cort (q.v.) in 

 1784, the process consists in the 

 removal of the carbon and silica 

 down to very minute proportions, 

 and also the manganese and phos- 

 phorus and to some extent the 

 sulphur, which cast iron always 

 contains as impurities. The pro- 

 cess oxidises these impurities, the 

 carbon being converted into gas 

 which escapes, and the silica and 

 other elements into slags called by 

 the puddler " cinder," which are 

 skimmed off the surface of the 

 molten mass at the proper stage. 



Puddling is carried out in a 

 special form of reverberatory fur- 

 nace, having a tall chimney to 

 ensure a good draught. Pig iron is 

 melted on the bed or hearth of the 

 furnace, and when quite molten, 

 the furnace door is opened, and 

 the surface of the melted metal 

 thus exposed to the air. Iron 

 oxide is at once formed, and is 

 worked into the mass by the 



Puck, the mischievous sprite of 

 British folklore. From an engrav- 

 ing after Sir J. Reynolds, illustrating 

 t scene from Shakespeare's Mid- 

 summer Night's Dream 



puddler by means of a " rabble,' 7 

 an iron tool with a long handle. 

 Additional oxide may be intro- 

 duced if required in the form of 

 magnetite or haematite, or " blue 

 billy," a burnt iron ore. As more 

 oxide is worked in, the mass begins 

 to get pasty, and the puddler begins 

 to form it into balls weighing from 

 60 Ib. to 80 lb., which he withdraws 

 from the furnace as he completes 

 them. See Frontispiece, vol. 6 ; 

 Casting ; Iron ; Metallurgy ; Steel. 



