10 
PET 
Full in the midft of Euclid dip at once. 
And petrify a genius to a dunce- Pope. 
To PET'RIFY, v . n. To become ftone. 
Like Niobe we marble grow, 
And petrify with grief. Dryden. 
PET'RIKOW or Pe'terkau, a town in the duchy 
of Warfaw. In this town the kings of Poland were for¬ 
merly elefted, and diets held. In 164.1 and 1731, it was 
confumed by fire: forty-eight miles eaft-fouth-eaft of 
Siradia. 
PET'RIKOW, a town of Lithuania : 130 miles fouth- 
eaft ofNovogrodek. 
PET'RILITE. See Mineralogy, vol. xv. p. 462. 
PET'RINAL. See Petronel. 
PETRIN'IA, a river of Croatia, which rifes near 
Pufta Petrinia, and runs into the Kulpa near Petrinia. 
PETRIN'IA, a ftrong town of Croatia, on the fouth 
fide of the Kulpa, built in the year 1592, by Allan Pacha: 
thirty-feven miles eaft of Carlftadt, and 156 fouth of 
Vienna. Lat. 45. 32. N. Ion. 16. 35. E. 
PETRIN'IA (Pufta), a town of Croatia, near the 
fource of the Petrinia: ten miles fouth of Petrinia. 
PETRIS'KI, a lake of European Turkey, in Macedo¬ 
nia : three miles north-eaft of Jenitza. 
PETRIZ'ZI, a town of Naples, in Calabria Ultra : five 
miles Squillace. 
. PETROBRO'SIANS, a religious fe£t, which had its 
rife in France and the Netherlands about the year mo. 
The name is derived from Peter Bruys, a Provencal, who 
made an attempt to reform the abufes and remove the fu- 
perftition that difgraced the beautiful fimplicity of the 
Golpel.. His followers were numerous; and for twenty 
years his labour in the miniftry was exemplary and un- 
remitted. He was, however, burnt in the year 1130 by 
an enraged populace fet on by the clergy. The chief of 
Bruys’s followers was a monk named Henry; from whom 
the Petrobrufians were alfo called Henricians. 
Peter the Venerable, abbot of Clugny, has an exprefs 
treatife againft the Petrobrufians; in the preface to which 
lie reduces their opinions to five heads. 1. They denied 
that children before the age of reafon can be juftified by 
baptifm, in regard it is our own faith that faves by bap- 
tifm. a. They held that no churches lhould be built, but 
that thofe that already are fliould be pulled down ; an 
inn being as proper for prayers as a temple, and a (table 
as an altar. 3. That the crofs ought to be pulled down 
and burnt, becaufe we ought to abhor the inftrument of 
our Saviour’s fufferings. 4. That the real body and blood 
of Chrift are not exhibited in the eucharift, but merely 
reprefented by their figures and fymbols. 5. That facri- 
fices, alms, prayers, See. do not avail the dead. 
PETROCAL'LIS, f. in botany. See Draba pyrena- 
ica, vol. vi. p. 46. 
PETROCARY'A, f. [a name given by Schreber to 
the Parinari of Aublet; derived from a ftone, and 
xxgvov, a nut, in allufion to the remarkable hardnefs and 
folidity of the large ftony feed.] In botany, a genus of 
the clafs heptandria, order monogynia, natural order of 
pomaceae, (rofacese, Jujf.) Generic characters—Calyx : 
perianthium one-leafed, turbinate, five-cleft; fegments 
ovate, acute, rigid, fpreading; leaflets two, oblong, con¬ 
cave, at the bafe of the perianth. Corolla : petals five, 
ovate, acute, unequal, lefs than the calyx and inferted 
into it between the fegments. Stamina •. filaments four¬ 
teen, capillary, longer than the calyx, inferted into the 
edge of it below the petals : feven antheriferous, the other 
feven in the oppofite part of the calyx, barren; antherae 
roundifh, gaping inwardly. Piftillum : germ ovate, vil- 
lofe ; ftyle cylindrical, curved in, villofe ; longer than the 
ftamens ; ftigma capitate. Pericarpium : drupe large, 
ovate, comprefled, flefhy-fibrous, one-celled. Seed : nut 
ovate, comprefled, finuous-wrinkled longitudinally, tu- 
bprcled : (hell thick, very hard, two-celled: kernels ob- 
P E T 
long.— Eflential Charatter. Calyx turbinate, five cleft, 
with two braftes at the bafe; corolla five-petalled, lefs 
than the calyx; filaments fourteen, feven of which are 
barren ; drupe inclofing a two-celled nut, with a ftony 
(hell. There are two fpecies. 
1. Petrocarya montana : leaves ovate. This is a very 
lofty tree, with a trunk eighty feet high, dividing at the 
top into very thick wide-fpreading branches ; the ramu- 
lets, or fmaller branches, being villofe and reddilh. The 
leaves are ovate and acuminate; perfectly entire, and be- 
fet on their under furface with a whitifli down. The fti- 
pules are two, very broad, (harp, oblong, and deciduous ; 
and are femi-amplexicaul at the bafes of the leaves. The 
flowers are raceme-terminal, the common footftalk being 
downy and whitifh. The flowers are white. The drupe 
fmooth and fulvous ; it has a thick acid bark; and the 
nut or kernel in each loculament of the putamen is fweet 
and edible. Sometimes one of the feeds is abortive. A 
native of woods in Guiana. 
2. Petrocarya campeftris : leaves cordate. A tree, with 
a trunk from thirty to forty feet high, branching at top: 
ramulets villofe and whitilh; leaves alternate, fubfeflile, 
green above, whitifli beneath. Putamen very hard, com- 
prefled, wrinkled and unequal; a (ingle edible fweet feed 
in each loculament. In woods in Guiana. 
Juflieu mentions two other fpecies, obferved by him 
amongft Adanfon’s fpecimens from Senegal, called mam- 
pata and rteou, whofe nuts however are ovate, and lefs 
furrowed or wreathed, their ftamens apparently fifteen, 
three oppofite to each fegment of the calyx. 
PETROJOAN'NITES, were followers of Peter-John, 
or Peter Joannis, i.e. Peter the fon of John, who flou- 
ri(hed in the 12th century. His doflrine was not known 
till after his death, when his body was taken out of the 
grave and burnt. His opinions were—that he alone had 
the knowledge of the true fenfe wherein the apoftles 
preached the gofpel; that the reafonable foul is not the 
form of man ; that there is no grace infufed by baptifm ; 
and that Jefus Chrift was pierced with a lance on the crofs 
before he expired. 
PE'TROL or Petro'leum,/. [petrole , Fr.] A liquid 
bitumen, black, floating on the furface of fprings. See 
the article Mineralogy, vol. xv. p. 475. 
Hitherto there has been little petroleum found, except 
in hot countries. Olearius fays, he law above thirty 
fprings of it near Scatnachia, in Perfia. There is alfo pe¬ 
troleum in the fouthern provinces of France ; but the beft 
is in the duchy of Modena, firft difeovered by Ariofto, a 
phyfician, in 1640, in a very barren valley, twelve leagues 
from the city of Modena. Three canals are there dug 
with great expenfe in the rock; by which three different 
kinds of petroleum are difeharged into little bafons or 
refervoirs : the firft, as white, clear, and fluid, ae water, of 
a brifk penetrating fmell, and not difagreable ; the fecond 
of a bright yellow, lefs fluid, and of a lefs brifk fmell 
than the white ; the third of a blackifh red, of thicker 
confidence, and a fmell more approaching that of bitu¬ 
men. 
Mr. Boulduc made feveral experiments with the petro¬ 
leum of Modena, an account of which he gave to the 
Paris Academy. It eafily took fire on being brought 
near a candle, and that without immediately touching 
the flame; and, when heated in any veflel, it will attraft 
the flame of a candle, though placed at a great height 
above the veflel; and, the vapour it fends up taking fire, 
the flame will be communicated to the veflel of heated 
liquor, and the whole will be confumed. It burns in the 
water, and, when mixed with any liquor, fwims on the 
furface of it, even of the higheft reftified fpirit of wine, 
which is one-feventh heavier than pure petroleum. It 
readily mixes with all the eflential oils of vegetables, as 
oil of lavender, turpentine, and the reft, and feems very 
much of their nature : nor is this very ftrange, fince the 
alliance between thefe bodies is probably nearer than is 
imagined, as the eflential oils of vegetables may have been 
originally 
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