sion, barras, Burgundy pitch, and turpentine are acquired and prepared; the resinous roots are dug out of the ground in many parts of the Highlands of Scotland. The fishermen 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, succulent, 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 America. The bark is very smooth and delicate, especially when the tree is young; the leaves are long and slender; they are closely placed on the branches; the cones are long, slender, and very loose, opening with the first warmth of the spring.

P. picea, silver fir, is a noble, upright tree; the branches are not numerous, but the bark is smooth and delicate; the upper surface of the leaves is of a fine strong green, the under has two white lines running lengthwise on each side of the midrib, giving the leaves a silvery look, for which reason this fir takes its name; the cones are large, growing erect; when the warm weather comes on they soon shed their seeds; the scales are wide, deltoid, rounded above, below beaked, and appen. dicled with a membranaceous, spatulate, dorsal ligule, terminated by a recurved dagger-point; nuts rather large, membranaceous, variously angular, dun-coloured. It has been observed in Ireland, that no tree grows so speedily to so large a size as the silver fir; some at forty years' growth, in a wet clay on a rock, measuring twelve feet in circumference at the ground, and seven feet and a half at five feet high; one contained seventy-six feet of solid timber.

P. balsamea, balm of Gilead fir tree, rises with an upright stem; the leaves are dark green on their upper surface, marked with whitish lines underneath; the cones are roundish and small; the buds and leaves are remarkably fragrant; from wounds. made in this tree a very fine turpentine is obtained, which is often sold for the true balm of Gilead. This tree makes little progress after eight or ten years' growth; it

has very much the habit of the silver fir; but the leaves are wider and blunter, disposed on each side along the branches like the teeth of a comb, but in a double row, the upper one shorter than the under; nnderneath they are marked with a double, glaucous line, each having eight rows of white dots; they are often cloven at top.

PIONEER, in the art of war, a labourer employed in an army to smooth the roads, pass the artillery along, and dig lines and trenches, mines, and other works.

PIPE, in building, &c. a canal or conduit, for the conveyance of water and other liquids. Pipes for water, water-engines, are usually of lead, iron, earth, or wood: the latter are usually made of oak or elder. Those of iron are cast in forges, their usual length is about two feet and a half; several of these are commonly fastened together, by means of four screws at each end, with leather or old hat between them, to stop the water. Those of earth are made by the potters; these are titted into one another, one end being always made wider than the other. To join them the closer, and prevent their breaking, they are covered with tow and pitch: their length is usually about that of the iron pipes. The wooden pipes are trees bored with large iron augers, of different sizes, beginning with a less, and then proceeding with a larger successively; the first being pointed, the rest being formed like spoons, increasing in diameter, from one to six inches or more: they are fitted into the extremities of each other.

Wooden pipes are bored as follows. (Fig. 1, Plate Pipe-boring,) is a plan of the machine; and fig. 2, an elevation of it. The piece of timber intended to form the pipe, is placed upon a frame, a, a, u, a, and held down upon it firmly by chains going over it, and round two small windlasses, bb, and it is wedged up to prevent its rolling sideways; if the piece is tolerably straight this will be sufficient, otherwise it must be steadied by iron dogs or hooks, similar to those used by sawyers, drove into the carriage at one end, and into the tree at the other. The frame and tree together run upon small wheels traversing two long beams or ground sills, DD, placed on each side of a pit, dug to receive the chips made by the borer; at one end they are connected by a cross beam, E, bolted upon them, this sup. ports the bearing for a shaft, F, the extre mity of which, beyond the bearing, is perforated at the end with a square hole, to receive the end of the borer, f. The car

riage, au, and piece of timber, are advanced towards the borer by ropes; g is one hooked to it, going over a pulley, (not seen) and returning to a windlass, H, above the carriage, round which it is coiled several times, and the end made fast to it; his another rope, hooked to it at the other end, and going over a pulley, and, coming to the same windlass, H, it is coiled round the windlass in a contrary direction to gg, and then nailed fast; by this means, when the windlass, H, is turned by the handles on its wheel, I; one rope will wind up, while the other gives out, and draws the carriage and piece of timber backwards or forwards, according as the wheel is turned. The weight of the borer is supported by a wheel, 7, turning between uprights, fixed to a block, L, whose end rests upon the groundsills, D ; it is moved forwards by two iron bars, mm, pinned to the front cross bar of the carriage, a a; the distance between the wheel, 2, and the carriage can be varied, by altering the iron bar and pins, so as to bring the point of support, or wheel, l, always as near as convenient to the end of the tree. The shaft, F, may be turned by any first mover, wind, water, steam, or horses, as is most convenient, and a man regulates the wheel, I. When the borer is put in motion, by turning the wheel, I, from o to p, he draws the tree up to the borer which pierces it; when a few inches are bored, he withdraws the tree, by turning the wheel back, that the borer may throw out its chips, he then returns the tree, and continues this process until the work is finished; the borer is the shape of a common auger.

PIPE, tobacco, a machine used in the smoaking of tobacco, consisting of a long tube, made of earth or clay, having at one end a little case, or furnace, called the bowl, for the reception of the tobacco, the fumes whereof are drawn by the mouth through the other end. Tobacco-pipes are made of various fashions; long, short, plain, worked, white, varnished, unvarnished, and of various colours, &c. The Turks use pipes three or four feet long, made of rushes, or of wood bored, at the end thereof they fix a kind of pot of baked earth, which serves as a bowl, and which they take off after smoking.

PIPE also denotes a vessel or measure for wine, and things measured by wine-measure. It is usually reckoned two hogsheads, or 126 gallons: this is the measure found in books, but in actual life it is very differ ent.

The pipe of Port is
Madeira.

Vidonia........

Sherry

Gallons.

138

........ 110

120

..................................... 130 Lisbon, and Bucellas 140

The pipe of port is seldom accurately 138 gallons, and it is customary in trade to charge what the cask actually contains, be it more or less than the estimated quantity.

PIPE, in music, any tube formed of a reed, or of wood, metal, &c. which being inflated at one end produces a musical sound, acute or grave, soft or loud, according to the material, its form, and dimensions. The pipe, which was originally no more than a simple oaten straw, formed one of the first instruments by which melodious sounds were attempted.

PIPES of Pun, or mouth organ, a wind instrument consisting of a range of pipes bound together side by side, and gradually lessening with respect to each other in length and diameter. The longest is about six inches, and the shortest only two in length. In performing upon this instrument, it is held in the hand, and the pipes are blown into by the mouth at the upper end.

PIPE, in law, a roll in the exchequer, otherwise called the GREAT roll, whence there is an office called the pipe office, where they take cognizance of estreats and forfeitures to the King.

PIPER, in botany, pepper, a genus of the Diandria Trigynia class and order. Natu ral order of Piperitæ. Urtica, Jussieu. Essential character: calyx none; corolla none; berry one-seeded. There are sixty species. Most of the peppers are perennial, with herbaceous or frutescent stems, some. times scandent and dichotomous, the branches as it were jointed. The numerous species of this genus are natives of the East and West Indies, a few of the islands in the South Seas, and two or three of the Cape of Good Hope. P. nigrum, black, pepper, grows spontaneously in the East Indies and Cochin China; it is cultivated with such success in Malacca, Java, and especially in Sumatra, that it is thence exported to every part of the world where a regular commerce has been established. White pepper was formerly thought to be a different species from the black; but it is nothing more than the ripe berries deprived of their skin, by steeping them about a fortnight in water; after which they are dried in the sun. P. betle, betel, has the

stems smooth and even, striated, angular; Jeaves acuminate, a little oblique at the base; peduncle longer than the petiole, and opposite to it; spike cylindrical, frequently, together with the peduncle, pendulous; petiole channeled at the base. It is the leaf of this species of pepper plant which is called betle, or betel, which serves to enclose a few slices or bits of the areca; these, together with a little chunam, or shell lime, are what the southern Asiatics universally chew to sweeten the breath and strengthen the stomach; the lower people there use it as ours do tobacco in Europe, to keep off the calls of hunger: it is there deemed the height of unpoliteness to speak to a superior without some of it in the mouth. The women of Canara on the Malabar coast, stain their teeth black with antimony, thus preserving them good to old age; the men, on the contrary, ruin theirs by the betel and chunam, or lime, which they take with it.

PIPERITIÆ, in botany, from the word piper, pepper, the name of the second order in Linnæus's "Fragments of a Natural Method;" consisting, as the name imports, of pepper, and a few genera which agree with it in habit, structure, and sensible qualities. These plants are mostly herbaceous and perennial. The stalks of some of them creep along rocks and trees, into which they strike root at certain distances. None of them rise above fifteen feet high, and but few exceed three or four feet. The flesh roots of many of these plants, particularly those of several species of arum, are extremely acrid when fresh. They lose this pungent quality, however, by being dried, and become of a soapy nature. The pepper plant of Senegal bears a round berry, about the size of hemp seed, which, when ripe, is of a beautiful red colour, and of a sweetish taste. It contains a seed of the shape and bigness of a grain of cabbage, but very hard, and possessing an agreeable poignancy. The berries grow in small bunches on a shrub that is about four feet high, and has thin supple branches, furnished with oval leaves, that are pointed at the ends, not very unlike those of the privet.

PIPRA, the manakin, in natural history, a genus of birds of the order Passeres. Generic character: bill short, strong, hard, nearly triangular at the base, and slightly incurvated at the tip; nostrils naked; tail short. These birds are very similar to the genus of Titmice, and are almost all peculiar to South America. There are thirty-one

species noticed by Gmelin. Latham enumerates only twenty-five. The following are most deserving of attention. P. rupicola, or the rock manakin, is as large as a pigeon, and is a very beautiful species, inha biting Cayenne and Guiana, and building in the holes and clefts of the rocks, in the most obscure recesses. They are very timid; but are frequently tamed, so as to accom. pany the domestic poultry. The female, after laying her eggs for a few years, assumes in some instances the distinctive plumage of the male, and may be mistaken for him; a circumstance, however, not peculiar to this genus of birds. The black-crowned manakin is frequent in Guiana, avoiding the open plains, and haunting the skirts of woods in small flocks. These birds are found in the neighbourhood of ant's nests, from which they are seen to spring up frequently as if stung by these insects, uttering at the moment a cry somewhat similar to the cracking of a nut.

PIRATE, one who maintains himself by pillage and robbing at sea. By statute 28 Henry VIII. c. 15, all felonies committed upon the sea, or any place where the Admiral has jurisdiction, shall be tried where. ever the King shall appoint by his special commission, as if the offence had been at common law. And by statute 6 George I, if any subjects or denizens of this kingdom, commits any hostility against others of the King's subjects upon the sea, under colour of any commission from any prince or other authority, he shall be deemed a pirate, and suffer accordingly.

By statute 18 George II. c. 30, persons committing hostilities, or aiding enemies at sea, may be tried as pirates. Piracies at sea are excepted out of the general pardon by 20 George II. c. 52.

PISCES, in natural history, is the fourth class in the Linnæan system, consisting of five orders, viz.