PUZZLE 



Puzzle (Mid. Eng. o-pposaile, 

 question). Question or contri- 

 vance to perplex the mind. It may 

 be n perplexing question, or an 

 arrangement of letters or words, 

 inviting solution (e.g. an acrostic, 

 anagram, etc.), or a toy or device 

 of wood, metal, or other material, 

 which has some intricate way of 

 being arranged, fastened, or un- 

 fastened. Examples of these last 

 are the Chinese Tangram, one of 

 the first of these contrivances to be 

 called a puzzle, which consisted 

 of a square piece of wood dissected 

 into geometrical pieces that could 

 be arranged BO as to form an im- 

 mense number of figures, and the 

 Chinese rings linked on to a bar 

 that had to be detached and re- 

 placed. Puzzle- walk is an alterna- 

 tive term for a maze (q.v. ). 



Puzzolana OR POZZOLANA. Mix- 

 tuf of silicates of volcanic origin. 

 It was discovered near Pozzuoli 

 (q.i'.), and is employed, mixed with 

 sand and slaked lime, as a cement. 



Pwllheli. Mun. borough, sea- 

 port, and market town of Carnar- 

 vonshire, Wales. It stands on the 

 N. side of Cardigan Bay, 21 m. 

 from Carnarvon, and is served by 

 the Cambrian Rly. It has a good 

 harbour, is a centre of the lobster 

 and oyster fisheries, and has a 

 coasting trade. Lead, copper, and 

 manganene are found in the 

 neighbourhood. There are ex- 

 cellent sands and good bathing. 

 Near the town much land has been 

 reclaimed from the sea. Pwllheli, 

 the name meaning the salt pool, 

 became a borough in the 13th cen- 

 tury. Market day, Wed. Pop. 3,800. 



Pyaemia (Gr. pi/on, pus ; haima, 

 blood). Form of blood poisoning 

 in which micro-organisms in the 

 circulation cause abscesses to ap- 

 pear in various parts of the body. 

 See Blood Poisoning. 



Pyapon. Dist. and town of 

 Burma, in the Irawadi division. 

 The dist. occupies the E. portion 

 of the Irawadi delta. Rice is the 

 sole crop. The town is situated 

 some miles from the coast and the 

 river channels. Area, 2,148 sq. m. 

 Pop., dist., 256,000; town, 7,100. 



Pyatigorsk. Town of Ciscau- 

 casia, S. Russia. It is in the prov. 

 of Terek, on the river Podkumok, 

 and on a branch of the Vladikavkaz 

 rly., and is famous for its sulphur 

 springs. There is a Greek Catholic 

 cathedral. Elburz, 60 m. distant, 

 may be seen from the square. 

 Pop. 32,000. 



Pydna, BATTLE OF. Fought in 

 168 B.C., at the town of that name, 

 in Macedonia, between the Romans 

 under L. Aemilius Paulus, and a 

 Greek army under Perseus, last 

 king of Macedonia. The battle is 

 memorable in military history for 



Henry Pye, 

 British poet laureate 



After Drummond 



6414 



the final triumph of the loose form- 

 ation of the Roman legionaries 

 armed with short swords over the 

 phalanx {q.v.) of spearmen. 



Pye, HENRY JAMES (1745-1813). 

 British poet laureate. The son of 

 Henry Pye, M.P., of Faringdon, 

 Berkshire, he 

 was born in 

 London, Feb. 

 20, 1745, and 

 educated at 

 Magdalen Col- 

 lege, Oxford. 

 In 1766 he in- 

 herited his 

 father's estate, 

 but so heavily 

 encu m bered, 

 that soon 

 after his own election as M.P. for 

 Berkshire, in 1784, he was obliged 

 to sell it. He retired from Parlia- 

 ment in 1790, and in that year suc- 

 ceeded Warton as poet laureate, 

 mainly as a reward for his loyalty 

 to Pitt, for though he had a sincere 

 love of letters, his poetry was dull 

 and pedestrian to a degree. The 

 appointment provoked general 

 ridicule, but he retained it with 

 complacency until his death at 

 Pinner, Aug. 13, 1813. 



Pye Corner OR PIE CORNER. 

 London landmark, at the N. end of 

 Giltspur Street, E.G. The name is 

 said to have been derived from an 

 inn. A small gilt figure of a fat boy 

 on the corner house of Cock Lane 

 perpetuates the legend that the 

 Great Fire, which, while it was 

 stopped at Cock Lane, continued 

 to rage about Cripplegate 20 hours 

 after Pye Corner had been razed, 

 was due to the sin of gluttony. See 

 Great Fire. 



Pyelitis (Gr. pyelos, pelvis). 

 Inflammation of the pelvis or 

 inner part of the kidney. Most 

 often due to a stone in the kidney, 

 or extension of inflammation from 

 the bladder, the symptoms are 

 pain in the back, irritability of the 

 bladder, blood or pus in the urine, 

 and intermittent fever. 



Pyeshkov, ALEXEI MAXIMO- 

 VTTCH (b. 1869). Russian author, 

 best known by his pen-name of 

 Maxim Gorky (q.v. ). 



Pygmalion. In Greek mytho- 

 logy, king of Cyprus, who made a 

 statue in ivory of a beautiful 

 maiden. He was so charmed with 

 his creation that he fell in love with 

 the statue and prayed to the god- 

 dess Aphrodite to give it life. His 

 request was granted and he mar- 

 ried the maiden and had by her a 

 son called Paphus. See Galatea. 



Pygmalion. Drama by Bernard 

 Shaw. It was produced April 11, 

 1914, at His Majesty's Theatre, 

 London, where it had a run of 118 

 continuous performances. The 



PYLON 



story deals with the efforts of Mr. 

 Higgins, a professor of phonetics, 

 to impart a diction and an accent 

 worthy of a duchess to a Cockney 

 flower-girl, named Eliza, and with 

 his discomfiture. Beerbohm Tree 

 played Higgins, Mrs. Patrick 

 Campbell Eliza, and Edmund 

 Gurney a dustman, Eliza's father. 



Pygmalion and Galatea. 

 Comedy by W. S. Gilbert. It was 

 produced Dec. 9, 1871, at the Hay- 

 market Theatre, London, and ran 

 for 194 performances, W. H. Kendal 

 playing the sculptor Pygmalion, 

 and Mrs. Kendal Galatea, the statue 

 come to life. The piece was revived 

 at The Lyceum, Dec. 8, 1883, with 

 J. H. Barnes and Mary Anderson 

 in the title-roles, again in 1 888 and 

 at The Comedy, in 1900. 



Pygmy. Name applied to dim- 

 inutive peoples. Derived from the 

 Gr. pygme, the measurement of the 

 forearm and the closed fist, the 

 term was used by Homer and 

 Herodotus for fabled races in 

 Ethiopia and India. It now denotes 

 the dwarf tribes encountered by 

 Schweinfurth, du Chaillu, Stanley, 

 and others in equatorial Africa, 

 and the negritos of S.E. Asia. See 

 Dwarf Races ; Giant ; Negrito. 



Pyjamas. Form of nightwear 

 consisting of a loose jacket and 

 trousers. The word is Anglicised 

 from the Persian paejama, lit. leg 

 clothing, trousers, fastened by a 

 string or cummerbund. 



Pyknometer OR PYCNOMETER. 

 Specific gravity bottle or vessel by 

 which the specific gravity of a 

 liquid is determined. This is done 

 by weighing separately a certain 

 volume of distilled water and an 

 equal volume of the liquid under 

 examination, and comparing the 

 two weights. The specific gravity is 

 expressed by the weight of a given 

 volume of the sample liquid divided 

 by the weight of an equal volume of 

 distilled water. 



Pylades. In Greek mythology, 

 the devoted friend of Orestes, 

 who gave him his sister Electra in 

 marriage. The friendship of Orestes 

 and Pylades is proverbial. 



Pylon (Gr., gateway). Massive 

 temple-portal in ancient Egypt. 

 Developed at Thebes (XVIIIth 

 dyn. ), it usually comprised a mono- 

 lithic lintel, corniced, on lofty 

 jambs, and flanked by two trun- 

 cated pyramidal towers, with 

 sculptured hieroglyphs. Vertical 

 grooves held poles for coloured 

 streamers on feast-days. The ap- 

 proach was between royal statues, 

 often colossal, and a pair of obe- 

 lisks. A notable example, Edfu, is 

 250 ft. wide, and 115 ft. high. At 

 Kamak (q.v. ), five successive pylons 

 were added to the Great Temple of 

 Senusert I in subsequent reigns. 



