558 



THE STANDARD DICTIONARY OF FACTS 



especially of the Bisayers, Mohammedan. The 

 mountain districts are inhabited by a negro race, 

 who, in features, stature, and savage mode of 

 living, closely resemble the Alfoors of the inte- 

 rior of Papua, and are probably the aborigines 

 driven before the inroads of the Malays. A few 

 of the negroes are Christians, but they are 

 chiefly idolaters, or without any manifest form 

 of religion, and roaming about in families with- 

 out fixed dwelling. The Mestizos form an influ- 

 ential part of the population; by their activity 

 engrossing the greatest share of the trade. These 

 are mostly of Chinese fathers and native mothers. 

 Few Spaniards reside in the Philippine Islands. 

 The Sulu Islands have a population of 150,000, 

 and are governed by a sultan, whose capital is 

 Sung. 



Pisa (pe'zd), a city of Italy, the capital of a 

 province of the same name, which was formerly 

 a part of Tuscany. The city, which is situated 

 on the banks of the Arno, about eight miles 

 from the mouth of that river, is surrounded by 

 old walls and moats, within which are numerous 

 gardens and cultivated fields, studded with the 

 ruins of convents. Among its old buildings the 

 most noteworthy is its cathedral, in the Tuscan 

 style of the Eleventh Century; to the east of 

 which is the famous Campanile, or leaning Tower 

 of Pisa, a round, marble belfry, 188 feet in 

 height, erected in the latter part of the Twelfth 

 Century. Pisa is the seat of a university, which 

 was founded in 1329. At the Council of Pisa, 

 in 1409, the rival popes, Benedict XIII. and 

 Gregory XII., were deposed, and Alexander V. 

 elected in their room. Pisa is said to have been 

 founded six centuries before Christ. It was a 

 flourishing city in the time of the Romans. At 

 the time of the Crusades its population was not 

 less than 150,000, and at one time it disputed 

 the dominion of the sea with Genoa. Popula- 

 tion, 61,279. 



Pittsburgh (according to its city charter, 

 Pittsburgh), a city, port of entry, and county- 

 seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania ; at the 

 confluence of the Monongahela and Allegheny 

 rivers, at the head of the Ohio River, 353 miles 

 west of Philadelphia. The city owns a water- 

 works system, costing over $7,000,000. The 

 reservoirs have a storage capacity of 68,000,000 

 gallons, and the water is distributed through 

 300 miles of mains. There are in all 230 miles 

 of streets, of which 200 miles are paved. The 

 sewer system covers 220 miles. The city is 

 lighted by electricity. The annual death rate 

 averages nineteen per 1,000. The principal pub- 

 lic buildings are the Allegheny court house, the 

 Carnegie Library and Institute, with museum, 

 music hall, and art gallery, and having an en- 

 dowment of $2,000,000; the United States Gov- 

 ernment building, the West Pennsylvania Ex- 

 position Society's buildings; Municipal Hall; 

 United States Arsenal, and the Western State 

 Penitentiary. The two chief industries are the 

 production of iron and steel; but there are 

 many other flourishing manufactures. The city 

 is well known as the Iron City, for there is noth- 

 ing in the iron industry which is not here manu- 

 factured. The capacity of the iron mills is over 

 800,000 tons annually, and that of the Bessemer 

 steel mills upward of 400,000 tons. There are 



in Pittsburg, besides blast furnaces and iron ami 

 steel works, over 1,500 manufacturing estab- 

 lishments, employing more than 60,000 persons. 

 The schools are flourishing and their accommo- 

 dations keep pace with increasing population. 

 There are over 200 churches in Pittsburg. The 

 most important of these are Trinity (P.E.), St. 

 Peter's (P. E.), First Presbyterian, United Evan- 

 gelical (German), First Baptist, English Evan- 

 j gelical, etc. In 1754, at the suggestion of George 

 Washington, the English began to erect a block- 

 bouse on the present site of the city. They 

 \ were driven away by the French, who built a 

 fort at the junction of the two rivers and named 

 it I)u Quesne. In 1758, after two unsucces.-tul 

 attempts to retake the place, the English, under 

 General Forbes, made a third attempt, and the 

 French burned and evacuated the fort. In the 

 following year another fort was erected here, 

 named in honor of William Pitt. The British 

 withdrew from the post in 1772, and it was held 

 by Virginia in 1775-1779. The place was in- 

 corporated as a city March 18, 1816. In 1877 

 a railroad strike and riot occurred in which 

 much damage was done to railroad property 

 and for which Allegheny County had to settle at 

 a cost of $4,000,000. Population, 364,161. 



Plymouth, the largest town in Devon- 

 shire, stands on the north shore of Plymouth 

 Sound, 250 miles west of London by rail; ad- 

 jacent to it are the towns of Stonehouse and 

 Devonport. Among the chief buildings are a 

 Gothic town-hall, a Fifteenth-Century church, 

 and a Roman Catholic cathedral. The chief 

 industry is chemical manufactures. There is a 

 large coasting and general trade, and important 

 fisheries. Many sea-going steamship companies 

 make it a place of call. The Sound is an im- 

 portant naval station, and historically famous 

 as the sailing port of the fleet that vanquished 

 the Armada. Population, 107,109. 



Po, the largest river of Italy, rises on Monte 

 Viso, one of the Cottian Alps, at an altitude of 

 6,405 feet, close to the French frontier. It has 

 an entire length of 360 miles, and drains an area 

 of nearly 28,900 square miles. Below Piacenza 

 its stream has from ante-Roman days been arti- 

 ficially embanked along great stretches with 

 double lines of embankments on each side. 



Pompeii, a seaport at the mouth of the 

 Sarnus, on the Neapolitan Riviera, founded 

 about 600 B. C. by the Oscans, and after them 

 occupied by the Tyrrheno-Pelasgians, and by 

 the Samnites, till these, about 80 B. C., were 

 dispossessed by the Romans. From that time 

 down to its destruction, A. D. 79, it became a 

 sort of Rome-super-Mare, frequented by the 

 aristocracy. On February 5, A. D. 63, by an 

 earthquake in the vicinity, these buildings were 

 all but leveled with the ground, and some years 

 elapsed ere the fugitive citizens recovered con- 

 fidence enough to reoccupy and rebuild what 

 was once Pompeii. Revolutionized as it was 

 for the worse, the city, however, retained much 

 of Greek character and coloring, and had re- 

 lapsed into more than its former gaiety and 

 licentiousness, when, on August 23 (or, more 

 probably, on November 23), 79, with a return 

 of the shocks of earthquake, Vesuvius was seen 

 to throw up a column of black smoke expanding 



