PIN 



PIN 



scout for intelligence, and for landing of 

 men, Sec. One of the boats belonging to 

 a great man of war, serving to carry the 

 officers to and from the shore, is also 

 called the pinnace. 



PINNACLE, in architecture, the top 

 or roof of an house, terminated in a 

 point. This kind of roof, among the an- 

 cients, was appropriated to temples ; 

 their ordinary roof's were all flat, or made 

 in the platform way. It was from the . 

 pinnacle that the form of the pediment 

 took its rise. 



PINNATED leaves. See BOTANY. 

 PINT, a vessel or measure used in es- 

 timating the quantity of liquids, and even 

 sometimes of dry things. It is the eighth 

 part of a gallon, both in ale and wine 

 measure ; but the gallon being different, 

 the pint must also differ. The wine pint 

 of pure water weighs almost seventeen 

 ounces avoirdupois, and the ale pint con- 

 tains a little more than twenty ounces. 

 The Scotch pint is equal to three English 

 pints. 



PINUS, in botany, pine tree, a genus of 

 the Monoecia Mouaclelphia class and or- 

 der. Natural order of Conifers. Essen- 

 tiaL character : male, calyx four-leaved ; 

 corolla none ; stamina veiy many, with 

 naked anthers : female, calyx strobiles, 

 with a two-flowered scale ; corolla none ; 

 pistil one ; nut with a membranaceous 

 wing. There are twenty-one species ; 

 we shall notice some of the most re- 

 markable. 



P. cedrus, cedar of Lebanon, has a ge- 

 neral striking character of growth so pe- 

 culiar to itself, that no other tree can be 

 mistaken for it ; it is placed by Linnaeus 

 along with the larch, in the same genus 

 with the firs and pines ; it agrees with 

 the former in its foliation, with the latter 

 in being evergreen ; the leaves resemble 

 those of the larch, but are longer and 

 closer set, erect, and perpetually green ; 

 the cones are tacked and ranged between 

 the branch leaves, in such order as to 

 give it an artificial and very curious ap- 

 pearance, and at a little distance a beau- 

 tiful effect : these cones have the bases 

 rounder, or rather thicker, and with 

 blunter points, the whole circumzoned 

 with broad, thick scales, which adhere 

 together in exact series to the summit, 

 where they are smaller ; but the entire 

 lorication is smoother couched than those 

 of the firs: within these repositories, under 

 the scale, nestle the small nutting seeds, 

 of a pear shape. Many wonderful pro- 

 perties are ascribed to the wood of this 

 celebrated tree, such as its resisting pu- 

 VOL. V. 



trefaction, destroying noxious insects, 

 continuing a thousand or two thousand 

 years sound, yielding 1 an oil famous for 

 preserving books and writings. 



The P. sylvestris, wild pine tree, is 

 called in Britain the Scotch fir, from its 

 growing naturally in the mountains of 

 Scotland ; it is common in most parts of 

 Europe, particularly the northern ; the 

 wood is the red or yellow deal, which is 

 the most durable of any of the kinds yet 

 known ; the cones are small, pyramidal, 

 ending in narrow points ; they are of a 

 light colour ; the seeds are small. In a 

 favourable soil, this tree grows to the 

 height of eighty feet, with a straight 

 trunk ; the bark is of a brownish colour, 

 full of crevices ; the leaves issue from a 

 white, truncated, little sheath, in pairs ; 

 they are linear, acuminate, entire, striat- 

 ed, convex on one side, flat on the other, 

 mucronate, bright green, smooth, from 

 an inch and a half to two inches in 

 length ; the scales of the male catkins 

 roll back at top, and are feathered ; the 

 inner and upper scales of the cones gra- 

 dually terminate in a short awn, the 

 lower scales have none. Few trees have 

 been applied to more uses than this ; the 

 tallest and straightest afford masts to our 

 navy ; the timber is resinous, durable, 

 and applicable to numberless domestic 

 purposes ; from the trunk and branches 

 of this and others of the genus, tar and 

 pitch are obtained ; by incision, barras, 

 Burgundy pitch, and turpentine, are ac- 

 quired and prepared ; the resinous roots 

 are dug out of the ground in many parts 

 of the Highlands of Scotland. The fisher- 

 men make ropes of the inner bark ; and 

 hard necessity has taught the Laplanders 

 and Kamschatdales to convert it into 

 bread ; to effect this, in spring they strip 

 off the outer bark carefully from the best 

 trees, collecting the soft, white, succu- 

 lent, interior bark, and drying it in the 

 shade. When they have occasion to use 

 it, they first toast it at the fire, then grind, 

 and after steeping the flower in warm 

 water, to take off the resinous taste, 

 they make it into thin cakes and bake 

 them. 



P. strobus, Weymouth pine tree, or 

 white pine, is one of the tallest species, 

 frequently attaining a hundred feet in. 

 height, in its native country, North Ame- 

 rica. The bark is very smooth and deli- 

 cate, especially when the tree is young ; 

 the leaves are long and slender; they are 

 closely placed on the branches; the 

 cones are lone 1 , slender, and very loose, 



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