PIK 



PIL 



PIECES, in the m ; ! : tary art, 'nclude all 

 sorts of great guns and mortars. Battering- 

 pieces are the larger son o! guns used at 

 sieges for making the breaches, such are 

 the twenty-four pounder, and culverin, 

 the one carrying twenty-lour, and the 

 otheran eighteen pound ball. Field pieces 

 are twelve-pounders, demiculverins, six- 

 pounders, sakers, minions, and three- 

 pounders, which march with the army, 

 and encamp always behind the second 

 line, but in the day of battle are in the 

 front. A soldier's firelock is likewise 

 called his piece. 



P1EPOWDER is a court held for the 

 redress of grievances, in remedying and 

 inforcing of contracts at fairs. 



PIER, or PEER, in building, denotes a 

 mass of stone, &c. opposed by way of 

 fortress against the force of the st-a, or a 

 great river, for the security of ships that 

 lie at harbour in any haven. 



PIERCED, or PKRCE, in heraldry, is 

 when any ordinary is perforated, or 

 struck through, showing, as it were, a 

 hole in it, which must be expressed in 

 blazon, as to its shape : thus if a cross 

 have a square hole, or perforation in the 

 centre, it is blazoned square-pierced, 

 which is more proper than quarterly- 

 pierced, as Leigh expresses it, When the 

 hole or perforation is round, it must be 

 expressed round-pierced; if it be in the 

 shape of a lozenge, it is expressed pierced 

 lozenge-ways. All piercings must be of the 

 colour of the field, and when such figures 

 appear on the centre of a cross, &c. of an- 

 other colour, the cross is not to be suppos- 

 ed pierced, but that the figure on it is a 

 charge, and must be accordingly blazoned. 



PIGEON. See COLUMDA. 



PIGEOXS. By statute 1. James I. c. 27. 

 the shooting at a pigeon is punishable 

 with 20/. fine, or commitment for three 

 months. 



PIGMENTS, are preparations, in a 

 solid form, chiefly employed by painters, 

 for imitating particular colours, and im- 

 parting them to the surface of bodies. 

 They are obtained from animal, vege- 

 table, and mineral substances: the latter 

 are the most durable. See COLOURS. 



PIKE, an offensive weapon, consisting 

 of a shaft of wood, twelve or fourteen feet 

 long, headed with a Mat- pointed steel, 

 called the spear. The pike was a long 

 time in use among the infantry, to enable 

 them to sustain the attack of the cavalry; 

 but it is now taken from them, and the 

 bayonet, which fixes on at the end of the 

 rarbine, is substituted in its place. Yet the 

 pike still continues t,he weapon of the 



Serjeants, who fight pike in hand, salute 

 with the pike, &c. 



PILASTER, in architecture, a square 

 column, sometimes insulated, but more 

 frequently let within a wall, and only 

 showing a fourth or fifth part of its thick- 

 ness. See ARCHITECTURE. 



PILCHARD, a species of the Clupea, 

 or Herring genus. The pilchard is less 

 than the herring, but fatter and more 

 abundant in oil. The pilchard appears in 

 vast shoals oft the Cornish coasts, (Eng- 

 land), about the middle of July. Their 

 approach is known by much the same 

 signs as those that indicate the arrival of 

 the herring. To the inhabitants of Corn- 

 wall, the pilchard fishery is a very profit- 

 able concern. Thousands of persons are 

 employed, during the season, in catch- 

 ing and curing the fish ; and the fisher- 

 men and merchants make large gains in 

 sending them to Italy, Spain, &c. Nearly 

 30,000 hogsheads are exported annually. 



PILE, any heap, as a pile of balls, 

 shells, &c. 



PILE, in antiquity, a pyramid built of 

 wood, on which the bodies of the deceas- 

 ed were laid in order to be burnt. 



PILE, in coinage, denotes a kind o 

 puncheon, which in the old way of coin- 

 ing with the hammer, contained the 

 arms, or other figure and inscription to 

 be struck on the coin. Accordingly we 

 still call the arms side of a piece of mo- 

 ney the pile, and the head the cross, be- 

 cause in ancient 'coin, a cross usually 

 took the place of the head in ours: but 

 some will have it called pile, from the 

 impression of a church built on piles, 

 struck on this side our ancient coins, and 

 others will have it to come from pile, the 

 old French word for a ship. 



PILE, in heraldry, an ordinary in form 

 of a wedge, contracting from the chief, 

 and terminating in a point towards the 

 bottom of the shield. The pile, like 

 other ordinaries, is borne inverted, in- 

 grailed, &c. and issues indifferently from 

 any point of the verge of an escutcheon. 



PILE engine. See ENGINE. 



PILE, in military affairs. Piles of shot 

 or shells are generally formed, in the 

 King's magazines, in three different man- 

 ners : the base is either a triangular 

 square, or a rectangle ; and from thence 

 the piles are called triangular, square, and 

 oblong. 



Rules for finding the Number of Shot in 



any Pile. 



PILE, triangular. Multiply the num- 

 ber in the side of the base by the base~-j- 



