Pynchon

3SS5

Pyrethrum

and Westfield on lands purchased from the In- ; iva* rlniwi'i.;, Jpa^'e. .^c fret Ions, which
^s< f t ' ascender L to it fmm the entrance at the foot

Pynchon, William (1590-1662), American i of the r^rami'

colonist, was born in Springfield, Essex, En?-! pyramid to«-k

According to Herodotus, this
inner time in construction—

loo.coo men I>cin:: * mpJoyrd on it for 30 years.

land. He was one of the patentees to whom

the charter of Massachusetts Bay was crant-; Other form* uf the pvrarmd are located in
ed in 1629, and accompanied Winthrop to the i Greece, Italy. Mexico, China. India, and
new colony in 1630. He founded Springfield, j Assyria,

after his English birthplace. In 1650. while ( Pyramus, in ancient lesend, was a youth
on a visit to London, he published The Men- of Babylon who
torious Price of Our Redemption, in which he
opposed the Calvinistic view of the atonement

and thereby brought on himself a charge of and slew himself under a mulberry tree, the
heresy in New England. An order was issued
that the book should be burned by the hang-
man, and Pynchon was cited to appear before
che General Court; but dissatisfied with the
treatment accorded him in the colony, he re-
turned to England in 1652, settled at Wrays-
bury, near Windsor, and conformed to the
Anglican Church. He also published: The
Jewes Synagogue (1652); How the First Sab-
bath Was Ordained (1654) J The Covenant of
Nature Made with Adam (1662).

Pyorrhoea (Pyorrhea) or Riggs' Dis-
ease, is a disease in which there is a forma-
tion of pus about the gums and sockets of the
teeth, which results in loosening, and finally
in the loss, of the teeth affected. It has been
estimated that over 90 per cent, of all adults
at some time suffer from this disease, and that
over 50 per cent, of all teeth that are lost fall
out through its morbid action.

Pyramid, in geometry, is a polyhedron, one
of whose faces is a polygon and all the other
faces are triangles, having the sides of the
polygon as bases and having a common vertex.
The pyramid is triangular, square, pentagon-
al, etc., according as the base is a triangle,
square, pentagon, etc. The Pyramids of Egypt
are quadrangular,

Pyramids, structures in the shape of the
geometric figure so called, erected in differ-
ent parts of the Old and New Worlds, the
most important being the Pyramids of Egypt.
The 'Pyramid field' lies in the Egyptian desert
close to Cairo. The Great Pyramid of Khuju
or Cheops (fourth dynasty) is counted as one
of the seven wonders of the world. This gi-
gantic tomb is 755 feet 8.8 inches in mean
length, and 481 feet 4 inches in its original
height, and the area of its base is slightly over
13 acres. Its slope or angle was 51° 50'. It has,
however, been much despoiled and stripped
of Its exterior blocks for the building of
the mosques and walls of Cairo. The original
sepulchral chamber, 46 x 27 feet and 10 feet
6 inches high, was hewn in solid rock, and

a maid Thisbe: and
finding her garment befouled \\ith blood by ?
lioness, concluded that she had been devoured,
and slew himself under a mulberry tree, the
fruit of which was ever afterwards red as
blood. Thisbe, returning, saw hL corpse,
and killed herself upon it. See Shakespeare's
Mid sit m m cr Xigh t 's D re a w.

Pyrenees, mountain chain forming the
boundary between France and Spain. The
length of the Pyrenees proper, from Cape
Cervera on the Gulf of Lions to I run on the
Bay of Biscay, is 270 m. The width of the
system varies from 90 m. to about 25 at the
Mediterranean extremity. The passes are usu-
ally from 6,000 to 7,000 ft. high, the highest
being the Port d'Or (9,843 ft.) and Breche de
Roland (9,856 ft.). The thermal springs are
very numerous and famous, those most fre-
quented on the French side being Bastneres de
Bigorre, Luchon, Bareges, and St. Sauveur;
and on the Spanish side Panticos, (8,500 ft.).

Pyrenees, Hautes. See Hautes Pyre-
nees.

Pyrenees, Peace of (November, 1659),
formed a sort of supplement to the peace of
Westphalia (1648), and was the second great
diplomatic success achieved by Mazarin,
showing the supremacy of France in Europe.
The chief fact of the peace was that the mar-
riage of Louis xiv. to Maria Theresa, the in-
fanta of Spain, was arranged—a marriage that
was afterwards the cause or excuse of many
wars, including the War of the Spanish Suc-
cession.

Pyrenees-Orientals, most south-easter-
ly dep. of France. The most important prod-
uct is wine; iron is mined; the coast lagoons
produce salt, and Amelie-les-Bains is noted
for its sulphur springs. Perpignan is the capi-
tal. Area, 1,598 sq,m.; p. 229,979.

Pyrenomycetes, an order of ascomycetous
fungi with flash-like fructifications, open at
the top for the discharge of the spores. Some
are parasitic on plants, others on insect larvae,
while several are saprophytes.

Pyrethrum, a section of the genus Chrys-
santkemum, herbaceous composite plants, the
distinctive features of which are that the pap-