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press exists in most European states. There is often no direct supervision previous to publication, but the official censor has it in his power to stop any publication which he deems objectionable, to confiscate the edition, and to prosecute the author and editor. Newspapers and pamphlets are generally subjected to a stricter censorship than larger works.

Press, The, a name given to the production, economy, and whole range of printed publications, although sometimes restricted to the issues of certain localities only, as the New York P., the London P. See JOURNALISM.

Pressensé, de, (EDMOND, D.D.,) an eloquent and earnest Fr. pastor, who has done much for the cause of Protestantism in France; b. in Paris 1824, d. 1891.

Pressing to Death. See CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. Pressiros'tres, a tribe of birds of the order Grallatores, distinguished by a bill of moderate size, not so strong as in the Cullirostres; while the hind toe is either wanting, or so short as not to touch the ground. To this tribe belong bustards, plovers, lapwings, oyster-catchers, etc.

Prestis'simo, the most rapid degree of movement known in musical composition.

Pres'to, in Mus., a direction that a piece should be performed in a rapid, lively manner.

Pressirostres.

a, plover; b. lapwing;

Pres'ton, an important manufacturing and market town in Lancashire, Eng. It occupies an eminence of Ribble, and it covers an area 2 m. square. Pres'ton, (JAMES P.,) statesman; Gov. b. 1775, d. 1843.

ring dotterel.

120 ft. above the Pop. 107,553. of Va. 1818-19;

Pres'ton, (MARGARET JUNKIN,) poet, b. 1835; author of several beautiful poems and publications of merit. Her translation of the Dies Irae is greatly admired.

Pres'ton, (THOMAS S.,) clergyman; was originally a P. E. minister; became R. C. rector of St. Ann's Parish, New York; also vicar-general of the diocese; b. 1824, d. 1891.

Pres'ton, (WILLIAM C., LL.D.,) statesman; U. S. senator from S. C. 1834-42; also Pres. of South Carolina Coll. 1822. Prestonpans', a village of Haddingtonshire, Scotland. It is supposed to have had salt-pans as early as the 12th c. Near P. was fought the famous battle of that name. Pop. 1,606.

Prest'wich, a cotton manufacturing village of Lancashire, Eng.; pop. 6,820.

Presump'tion, an inference drawn by the law in certain circumstances or conditions of facts, and is used generally as a mere starting-point in an argument or litigation. Ps. are often divided into presumptio juris and presumptio juris et de jure. The former serves as a mere starting-point, and may be rebutted by proof to the contrary. Thus, a person who has possession of goods is presumed to be the owner till the contrary is proved. A man is presumed to be innocent until the contrary is proved. A presumptio juris et de jure is said to be a P. which cannot be rebutted; but there are few instances of this. Ps. abound in all departments of the law, and are adopted from the necessity of coming to some conclusion or other in most cases where the evidence is general or inconclusive.

Pretenders. See STUART. CHARLES E. L. C. Pre'vost, (AUGUSTINE,) soldier; major-general during the Amer. Revolution; b. at Geneva, Switzerland, 1725, d. 1786. Prévost, (GEORGE,) Lieut-Gov. of Nova Scotia 1808, and Commander-in-Chief of British Am.; b. in New York 1767, d.

1816.

Prévost-Paradol, (LUCIEN ANATOLE,) a distinguished Fr. littérateur, b. at Paris 1829; became one of the editors of the Journal des Débats, writing generally the leading articles; d. 1870.

Pri'am, King of Troy at the time of the Trojan War, was the son of Laomedon and Strymo or Placia. The epic poet gives him in all 50 sons, while later writers add as many daughters. The best known of these are Hector, Paris, Deiphobos, Helenus, Troilus, and Cassandra. P. is represented as too old to take any active part in the Trojan War; and in Homer only once appears on the field of battle. The oldest Greek legends, i. e., the Homeric, are silent respecting his fate; but the latter poets-Euripides, Virgil, etc.-say that he was slain by Pyrrhus at the altar of Zeus Herkeios when the Greeks stormed the city.

Price, (BONAMY,) an Eng. economist, b. in Guernsey in

1807; became assistant master at Rugby 1881; Prof. of Political Economy at Oxford 1858; was a distinguished representative of free-trade doctrines, and author of the Prin ciples of Currency, and of many articles in reviews and magazines. He lectured in the U. S. 1874. D. 1888.

Price, (RICHARD,) b. in Wales 1723. His Review of the Principal Questions and Difficulties in Morals, though a somewhat heavy work, established his reputation as a metaphysician and a moralist. In 1769 the degree of D.D. was conferred on him by the University of Glasgow. In 1776 appeared his Observations on Civil Liberty and the Justice and Policy of the War with America. Of this work 60,000 copies were said to have been sold in a few months. So greatly was it admired in the U. S. that in 1778 the Amer. Congress, through Franklin, communicated to him their desire to consider him a fellow-citizen, and to receive his assistance in regulating their finances; an offer declined principally on the ground of age. D. 1791.

Price, (RODMAN M.,) statesman; Gov. of N. J. 1854-57; one of the founders of the New Jersey Normal School; b. 1816. D. 1894.

Price, (STERLING,) b. in Va. 1809; served in the Mo. Legislature; became member of Congress in 1845; was made brigadier-general in the Mexican War; was Gov. of Mo. from 1853-57; was a noted leader of the secession party; was appointed major-general in the Confederate service in 1862; entered into a combination with Vallandigham and others, and founded the Knights of the Golden Circle, a secret political society, of which he was grand commander, composed, it is said, of nearly 25,000 Missourians; d. 1867.

Prich'ard, (JAMES COWLES,) a distinguished ethnologist and physician, b. at Ross, in Herefordshire, Eng., 1786. His father, Thomas P., was a member of the Society of Friends. In 1810 he commenced practice in Bristol as a physician. His talents were soon recognized, privately and publicly. He was first appointed physician to the Clifton Dispensary and St. Peter's Hospital, and afterward physician to the Bristol Infirmary. In 1813 he published his first work, Researches into the Physical History of Mankind, which at once gave him a high standing as an ethnologist. As a tribute to his eminence as an ethnologist Dr. P. was elected president of the Ethnological Society; while, in recognition of his researches into the nature and various forms of insanity, he received the government appointment of Commissioner in Lunacy. This occasioned his removal from Bristol to London, where, unfortunately for the interests of science, he expired of rheumatic fever, 1848.

Prick'le, in Bot., a strong and hard elongated and pointed hair. The P. is connected only with the bark, and not with the wood, in which it essentially differs from the spine or thorn. Ps. are sometimes straight, sometimes curved. They have often a pretty extended base-of some definite shape-by which they are attached to the bark.

Prickly Ash, or Tooth'ache-tree, a shrub of the U. S.; bark aromatic, leaves smelling like lemons, used medicinally for toothache, rheumatism, etc.

Prick'ly Heat, the popular name in India and other tropical countries for a severe form of the skin disease known as Lichen. It more frequently attacks strangers from temperate climates than the natives, although the latter are not exempt from it. The sensation of the itching and stinging which attend it is intense, and gives rise to an almost irre. sistible propensity to scratching, which, of course, only aggravates the irritation. Treatment.-Locally, starch-powder, glycerine and rose-water, or glyceramyl, (glycerite of starch,) or weak lead water, will be found useful. Plethoric patients must have low diet; the anæmic, lean meat, bitter tonics, iron, etc. Costiveness should be overcome by sulphur and cream of tartar, rhubarb and aloes, or other mild but decided laxatives. Blue mass may be given, (5 or 10 grains every third or fourth night,) followed the next morning by a Seidlitz powder or Rochelle salts. Then Fowler's solution of arsenic, (3 drops morning and evening after food,) omitting it if headache, nausea, diarrhoea, or puffiness of the face occur.

Prickly Pear, or Indian Fig, a genus of plants of the natural order Cacter, having a fleshy stem, generally formed of compressed articulation, sometimes of cylindrical articulations; leafless, except that the youngest shoots produce small cylindrical leaves, which soon fall off; generally covered with clusters of strong hairs or of prickles; the flowers spring from among the clusters of prickles or from the margin or summit of the articulations, solitary or corymboso-paniculate, generally yellow, rarely white or red; the

fruit resembling a fig or pear, with clusters of prickles on the skin, mucilaginous, generally eatable-that of some species pleasant, that of others insipid. The prickles of some species are so strong, and their stems grow up in such number and strength, that they are used for hedge plants in warm Countries. The common P. P., or Indian fig, a native of Va. and more southern N. Am., is now naturalized in many parts of the S. of Europe and N. of Africa, and in rather warm countries.

Prideaux, (HUMPHREY,) an Eng. scholar and divine, b. in Cornwall 1648. In 1678 he published an ac count of the Arundelian Marbles, under the title of Marmora Oxoniensia, Prickly Pear. which greatly increased his fame as a scholar, and in the following yr. he took the degree of M.A. He d. 1724. His principal works are Life of Mahomet and The Connection of the History of the Old and New Testaments. Prideaux, (JOHN,) soldier; commanded the expedition sent against Fort Niagara 1759; was killed by the bursting of a bomb; b. in England 1718.

Prie'go, a Span. town, in the prov. of Cordova; pop. 13,000.

Priess nitz, (VINCENT,) the founder of Hydropathy, b. at Gräfenberg, in Austrian Silesia, where he became a farmer, 1799. It appears that a neighbor who had been in the way of healing trifling wounds on himself and others by means of cold water treated P. successfully in this way for a serious injury from the kick of a horse; and P., having thus had his attention directed to the virtues of cold water, began to give advice to his neighbors how to cure all ailments with cold water. At last, about 1826, strangers began to repair to Gräfenberg, and stay there for some time for treatment; in 1829 there were as many as 49 water patients, and in 1837 the number had risen to 586. P. continued till 1833 to carry on his farming, but after that his practice, and the care of the establishments which he had to provide for the reception and treatment of his patients, fully occupied him. D. 1851. Priest, the title, in its most general signification, of a minister of public worship, but specially applied to the minister of sacrifice or other mediatorial offices. In the early history of mankind the functions of the P. seem to have commonly been discharged by the head of each family; but on the expansion of the family into the state, the office of P. became a public one. It thus came to pass that in many instances the priestly office was associated with that of the sovereign, whatever might be the particular form of the sovereignty. But in many religious and political bodies, also, the orders were maintained in complete independence, and the Ps. formed a distinct, and, generally speaking, a privileged class. In the Mosaic law the whole theory of the priesthood as a sacrificial and mediatorial office is fully developed. The P. of the Mosaic law stands in the position of a mediator between God and the people; and even if the sacrifices which he offered be regarded as but typical and prospective in their moral efficacy, the P. must be considered as administering them with full authority in all that regards their legal value. In the Christian dispensation the name primitively given to the public ministers of religion was presbyteros, of which the English name "P." is but a form derived through the old French or Roman prestre. The name given in classical Greek to the sacrificing priests of the pagan religion, Gr. hiereus, Lat. sacerdos, is not found in the N. T. explicitly applied to ministers of the Christian ministry, but very early in ecclesiastical use it appears as an ordinary designation; and with those bodies of Christians, Roman Catholics, Greeks, Syrians, and other Orientals who regard the Eucharist as a sacrifice, the two names were applied indiscriminately.

Priest'ley, (JOSEPH,) b. in London, Eng., 1733. In 1755 he became minister to a small congregation at Needham Market, in Suffolk, with an average salary of £30 per annum. While here he composed his work entitled The Scripture Doctrine of Remission, which shows that the Death of Christ is no proper Sacrifice nor Satisfaction for Sin. He seems to have rejected all theological dogmas which appeared to him to rest solely upon the interpretation put upon certain passages of the Bible by ecclesiastical authority. Even the fundamental doctrines of the Trinity and of the Atonement he did not consider as warranted by Scripture. In 1766 hel

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was made a member of the Royal Society, and a LL.D. by the University of Edinburgh. "No one," says Dr. Thomp son, "ever entered on the study of chemistry with more disadvantages than Dr. P., and yet few have occupied a more dignified position in it." Subsequently he became minister of a dissenting chapel at Birmingham, and in 1786 wrote his History of Early Opinions Concerning Jesus Christ. His reply to Burke's Reflections on the French Revolution led to his being made a citizen of the French Republic; and this led to a mob on one occasion breaking into his house, and destroying all its contents, books, MSS., scientific instruments, etc. In 1791 he succeeded to a charge at Hackney, which had become vacant by the resignation of Dr Price. He removed to Am. in 1794, where he was received with respect, if not with enthusiasm. He had the offer of a professorship of chemistry at Philadelphia, which he declined. He d. 1804, expressing his satisfaction with having led a life so useful, and his confidence in immortality. Says Cuvier: "As a physicist and chemist the talents of P. were of a high order. He discovered the effect of respiration on the blood, and also discovered nitrous gas, muriatic gas, and oxygen. In 1779 he obtained the Copley medal for his "Observations on the Different Kinds of Air.'

Prieur-Duvernois, (CLAUDE ANTOINE,) a Fr. republican, b. 1763, d. 1832. To him is ascribed the reform which rendered weights and measures uniform in France.

Prilu ki, a town of European Russia, in the Govt. of Poltava; pop. 10,670.

Prim, (JUAN,) a Span, general, b. 1814; entered the Span. ish army when but a mere boy; became a colonel in 1837; aided Narvaez, 1843, in the overthrow of Espartero, and as sisted in effecting the return of Queen Maria Christina, who rewarded him by bestowing various honors on him, and mak ing him Gov. of Madrid; in 1844 was imprisoned on an ac cusation of treason, but was soon pardoned, and was appointed Gov. of Porto Rico; was commander-in-chief of the army against Morocco, and was made marquis; in 1861 commanded the Spanish contingent in the allied intervention of France and Spain in Mexico; visited the Army of the Potomac on his way back to Spain; was banished from Madrid in 1864, but on the overthrow of Isabella, in which he aided, was welcomed back to Spain with open arms, and filled the high. est posts in the realm; is said to have furnished the pretext for the Franco-Prussian War by his offer of the Spanish crown to Prince Leopold, etc. He was assassinated in 1870 in the streets of Madrid for having procured in the Cortes the election of Amadeus to the Spanish throne. See AMADEUS. Pri'ma Don'na, (lit. "first lady,") the first female singer in an opera, whether soprano or contralto. Pri'mæ Vi'æ, (Lat. "the first passages,") the stomach and intestinal canal, the lacteals or absorbents being the Secunda Vice.

Pri'mate, the title of that grade in hierarchy which is immediately below the rank of patriarch. The title strictly belongs to the Latin Church, but in its general use it corre sponds with that of exarch in the Greek Church, although there were some exarchs who were not immediately subject to a patriarch. This arose in the Eastern Church from the variation in the limits of the patriarchates, which were not of simultaneous origin; but in the West, where the patriarch was recognized as possessing universal jurisdiction, this exemption of ny particular P. from superior jurisdiction could not of course arise. The P., as such, was the head of a par ticular Church or country, and held rank, and in some Churches a certain degree of jurisdiction, over all bishops and archbishops within the national Church. This jurisdic tion, however, was confined to the right of visitation and of receiving appeals.

Pri'mates, the name given by Linnæus to the first order of mammalia in his system, and which he placed first because he ranked man among them, and accounted them highest in the scale of nature. He assigned as the characters of the or der incisor teeth in the front of the mouth, four in the upper jaw, in one row; mammæ two, pectoral. In this order he places four genera, Homo, Simia, Lemur, and Vespertilio, corresponding to the Bimana, Quadrumana, and Cheiroptera of Cuvier. The order is now restricted to the lemurs, mar. mosets, monkeys, apes, and man.

Prime, the first of the so-called "lesser hours" of the Roman Breviary. It may be called the public morning prayer of that Church, and corresponds in substance with the morning service of the other ancient liturgies, allowance being made for Latin peculiarities.

Prime, (EDWARD DORR GRIFFIN,) clergyman; associate

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editor of the New York Observer; Amer. chaplain at Rome 1854-55; b. at Cambridge, N. Y., 1814. He wrote many clever books. D. 1891.

Prime, (SAMUEL IRENEUS, D.D.,) clergyman; senior editor of the New York Observer 1840-79, and author of about forty books on diverse themes; b. at Ballston, N. Y., 1812. Dr. P. was greatly interested in the temperance cause and other good works. D. 1885.

Prime, (WILLIAM C.,) man of letters; editor of the New York Journal of Commerce 1861; traveled extensively and wrote largely on travels, numismatology, biography, and art; b. at Cambridge, N. Y., 1825.

Prime Meridian, the principal meridian on the surface of the earth, from which longitudes are reckoned. See MERIDIAN and MERIDIAN CONFERENCE.

Prime Mov'er, a machine designed to transform any natural motion or force into a useful agent, having in many respects the characteristics of other machines, but differing in that its construction and the arrangement of its parts are necessarily dependent upon the nature and source of the energy to be utilized.

Prime Num'bers are those which cannot be exactly divided by any number but 1; any two numbers only divisible by 1 are prime to each other.

Prime Vertical, a vertical circle at right angles to the MERIDIAN, (q. v.,) passing through the E. and W. points, and the ZENITH and NADIR, (q. v.)

Prime Vertical Tran'sit, a TRANSIT INSTRUMENT (q. v.) so mounted that it revolves in the plane of the prime vertical, its horizontal axis in this case pointing N. and S. It is used for the accurate determination of either star declinations or terrestrial latitudes, or in some special investigations of the co-efficient of aberration or of stellar parallax.

Primogen'iture, the rule of law under which the eldest son of the family succeeds to the father's real estate in preference to, and in absolute exclusion of, the younger sons and all the sisters. This is the rule adopted in Britain and in most European countries. It is generally said this preference of males took its origin from the feudal system, by which the devolution of land depended on the personal ability of the party to perform military service. Our Danish ancestors seem not to have acknowledged any preference of the males, but the Saxons did so. This law does not, like the Salic law, totally exclude females, but merely postpones them until the males are exhausted. It does not obtain in the U. S.

Prim'rose, a genus of plants of the natural order Primulacea, having a bell-shaped or tubular 5-toothed calyx, a salver-shaped corolla with five seg. ments, five stamens, a globose germen containing many ovules, and a many-seeded capsule opening by five valves, and generally with 10 teeth at the apex. The species are all herbaceous perennials, generally having only radical leaves; and the flowers in a simple umbel, more rarely with scapes bearing solitary flowers. Almost all of them are natives of Europe and the N. of Asia. Their fine colors and delicate beauty have led to the cultivation of some of them as garden flowers, probably from the very beginning of floriculture.

English Primrose, (Primura vulgaris.)

Primula ceæ, a natural order of exogenous plants, containing more than 200 known species, mostly natives of temperate and cold regions. They are all herbaceous, or scarcely half-shrubby, with leaves generally all radical, and no stipules. The calyx is 5-cleft, inferior or half-superior, regular, persistent; the corolla, with the limb divided into as many seg. ments as the calyx, rarely wanting; the stamens inserted on the corolla, one opposite to each of its lobes; the ovary 1-celled, the style solitary, the stigma capitate; the capsule with a central placenta and many seeds. Many of the P. have flowers of much beauty, and some are very fragrant, as the Primrose, Cowslip, Auricula, Pimpernel, Loosestrife, etc.

Prince, an epithet which was originally applied to the princeps senatus of the Roman state, and afterward became a title of dignity. It was adopted by Augustus and his successors; hence the word was afterward applied to persons enjoying kingly power, more especially the rulers of small states, either sovereign, as in the case of the ancient Princes of Wales, or dependent, like the rulers of certain states in Germany. The

title is now very generally applied to the sons of kings and emperors, and persons of the blood-royal. In various parts of continental Europe the title P. is borne by families of eminent rank, but not possessed of sovereignty; and in England a duke is, in strict heraldic language, entitled to be styled "High Puissant and most Noble Prince;" and a mar. quess or earl as "Most Noble and Puissant Prince."

Prince, (OLIVER H.,) statesman, b. 1787; was one of the plann. rs and first settlers of Macon, Ga.; U. S. senator 182829; lost at sea 1837.

Prince, (THOMAS,) minister of the Old South Church, Bos. ton; gathered a valuable library of books and MS. materials for the civil and religious history of New England, which now form part of the Boston Public Library; b. in Mass. 1678, d. 1758.

Prince Albert, a town of Saskatchewan, a prov. of the Dominion of Canada; pop. about 2,500.

Prince Edward Island, a prov. of the Dominion of Canada, in the S. of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and separated from New Bruswick and Nova Scotia by the Strait of North. umberland; 1. 130 m., w. 4 to 34 m.; area 1,365,400 acres, pop. 109,088. It is of great fertility, and the agricultural products are about double the quantity required for local consumption. Of the whole area, consisting of 1,360,000 acres, 1,300,000 acres are "good" land, and 60,000 acres are "poor" land. There are about 1,200,000 acres under culti

vation.

Prince of Wales, the title borne by the eldest son of the sovereign of England. The native sovereigns of Wales were so designated in the days of Welsh independence; and on the conquest of Wales the principality of Wales and earldom of Chester were bestowed by Henry III. on his son, afterward Edward I., but as an office of trust and government rather than as a title. It is traditionally related that Edward I. engaged to give the Welsh people a prince who would be born among them and not know a word of English, and fulfilled the promise by bestowing the principality on his infant son, Edward, b. at Caenarvon Castle.

Prince of Wales Island, or Pu'lo Pinang', an important British possession, and one of the Straits Settlements, lies at the mouth of the Strait of Malacca, near the W. coast of the Malay Peninsula; 1. 13 m., w. 5 to 10 m.; area 103 sq. m. Georgetown, the cap., is situated at the N.-E. extremity of the island, and is defended by Fort Cornwallis. Pop. 94,021.

Prin'ceps Sena'tus, first in rank of Roman senators during the reign of the kings; the method of election as well as the nature of the office varied at different periods, and the title was finally assumed by the emperors.

Prince Rupert's Drops. These scientific toys, so called from Prince Rupert, their inventor, are simply drops of glass thrown, when melted, into water, and thus suddenly consolidated. They have usually a form somewhat resembling a tadpole. The thick end may be subjected to smart hammering on an anvil without its breaking; but if the smallest fragment of the tail be nipped off, the whole flies into fine dust with almost explosive violence. The phe

nomenon is due to the state of strain in the interior of the mass of glass, caused by the sudden consolidation of the crust. The crust is formed while the internal mass is still liquid. Prince's Feath'er, an annual plant of the genus Ama. rantus, cultivated in the U. S. See AMARANTH.

Prince's Metal, or Prince Ru'pert's Metal, terms applied to various alloys, but especially to a composition of copper and zinc in the proportions of three to one.

Prince'ton, a borough in P. twp., Mercer Co., N. J., on a branch of the Pennsylvania R.R., 40 m. N.-E. of Philadelphia. It is pleasantly situated, and contains many elegant residences; has a bank, two weekly newspapers, and eight churches. Pop. 3,442. P. is celebrated as the seat of the Coll. of New Jersey, popularly known as Princeton Coll. See NEW JERSEY, COLLEGE OF.

Prince'ton, Battle of, an engagement between Lord Cornwallis and Washington, near Princeton, N. J., Jan. 3, 1777, of great importance in re-animating the courage of the Continental troops.

Princeton College. See NEW JERSEY, COLLEGE OF. Prince'ville, a town of the prov. of Quebec, Canada, is the site of Princeville Coll.; pop. 511.

Prin'cipal, in Mus., a metallic stop in an organ, midway in point of pitch between the diapason and the 15th, and used as the standard for tuning the other stops. Also the leading part in any musical composition.

Principal and Agent. The law of P. and A. is founded