sitions in history and philology. In 1820 he communicated to the American academy a scheme for reducing spoken languages to written forms, in an "Essay on a Uniform Orthography for the Indian Languages of North America." He proposed that each elementary sound should be represented by its own distinctive character exclusively, and presented an alphabet formed upon this principle. The system has been applied to the Indian languages of North America and of the islands of the Pacific, and some of those of Africa. The results of Mr. Pickering's studies were for the most part made public in pamphlets or in literary periodicals. In 1816 he published his "Vocabulary of Americanisms" (8vo., Boston). Under the directions of the legislature of Massachusetts, he, in conjunction with Charles Jackson and Asahel Stearns, revised the general statutes of the state, reducing them to a code, which, as modified and adopted by the legislature, was published in 1836. His most important work was his Greek and English lexicon, which he began to prepare in 1814 (before any similar lexicon had been undertaken), and finished with the assistance of Dr. Daniel Oliver and published in 1826. A 2d edition, much enlarged and improved, appeared in 1829; and the revision of the 3d, still further improved, was completed by him just before his decease. Among his other writings separately published may be mentioned "Remarks on the Indian Languages of North America" (8vo., Philadelphia, 1836), and "Memoir on the Language and Inhabitants of Lord North's Island" (4to., Cambridge, 1845). III. CHARLES, M.D., an American naturalist, grandson of Timothy Pickering, born in Susquehanna co., Penn., in Nov. 1805. He was educated at Harvard college in the class of 1823, and was attached as naturalist to the U. S. exploring expedition under Commander Charles Wilkes, 1838-42. After the termination of that expedition he went to India and eastern Africa, for the purpose of studying the characteristics of different tribes of those countries, and published the results of his researches in his "Races of Man and their Geographical Distribution" (4to., Philadelphia, 1848), and "Geographical Distribution of Animals and Man" (Boston, 1854). Another work, of long study, on the geographical distribution of plants, is now (1861) in the press. It consists of a botanical description and comparison of the countries visited by the exploring expedition, and by him on his subsequent excursion to the Indian ocean. About 50 comparative floras are given, personally examined at all the principal geographical positions on the globe. From hints in ancient authors, and by comparisons and calculations from various numbers in history, he is confident that he has made the discovery that the Egyptian great year consisted of 1,540 years of 365 days each, and that the fabled phoenix was but a measure of time, being 660 years, that is, of the great year. See his "Chrono

logical Observations on Introduced Animals and Plants" (4to., Boston).

PICKERSGILL, HENRY WILLIAM, an English portrait painter, born in 1782. In 1825 he was elected a royal academician, and since 1855 he has been librarian of the academy.-FREDERIC RICHARD, also a painter, nephew of the preceding, born in London in 1820. His first work, "The Brazen Age," in water colors, was exhibited in 1839. His works attracted little attention until the production of his cartoon of the "Death of King Lear," for which he received a prize of £100 at the exhibition at Westminster hall in 1842. He also received one of the 3 first class prizes of £500 for his colossal oil painting of the "Burial of Harold," purchased for a similar sum by the commission appointed to examine the merits of pictures sent to the Westminster hall competition of 1847, and now placed in the new houses of parliament. In 1847 he was elected an associate of the royal academy, and in 1857 an academician.

PICKETT, ALBERT JAMES, an American historian, born in Anson co., N. C., Aug. 13, 1810, died in Montgomery, Ala., Oct. 28, 1858. He went with his father to Alabama in 1818, and studied law. He never applied for a license to practise, however, but after his marriage in 1832 devoted himself to literary pursuits and the care of his plantation. In 1851 he published a "History of Alabama" (2 vols. small 4to., Charleston).

PICKLES, vegetables of various sorts, as small cucumbers, onions, string beans, and cabbage, and also some fruits, such as melons, peaches, India mangoes, and soft unripe nuts, preserved in vinegar to be eaten as a condiment. The articles are steeped or parboiled in brine and then transferred to the vinegar, to which some salt is added, and to give flavor some of a variety of spices are also introduced, as well as mustard, horse radish, &c. East India pickles are flavored with curry powder mixed with mustard and garlic. For some articles the vinegar is used cold, for others hot, and for onions pure distilled vinegar is employed in order that the natural whiteness of these vegetables may be preserved. The use of pickles is so general that they are almost one of the common necessaries of life; and among seafaring men especially their consumption is said to be prodigious. On this account it is a matter of serious consideration, that they are often contaminated with a poisonous salt of copper, which after several receipts given in the cookery books is intentionally introduced for the purpose of giving to the pickles a pleas ing bright green color. To obtain this effect the vinegar is boiled in brass or copper vessels, or copper coins are introduced into the boiling liquid, and sometimes verdigris and blue vitriol or the sulphate of copper. This salt is, however, produced by boiling vinegar which contains sulphuric acid in copper vessels, and most of the vinegar that is used in the pickle factories is of this character. Dr. Hassall reports

PICO DELLA MIRANDOLA

that the samples of pickles examined by him, amounting to 23 in number, all contained copper to some extent, and two or three of them in dangerous quantities. Sulphuric acid also was detected in 19 out of 20 samples of vinegar used for pickling. Numerous fatal cases of poisoning are reported as having occurred from the use of such pickles. The presence of copper may be suspected in all pickles of a brighter green color than the vegetables naturally possess; and it is proved when a bright piece of iron immersed for a short time in the liquid becomes coated with copper; or if, when a bit of the pickles is minced fine and put into a vial with liquid ammonia diluted with an equal amount of water, the liquid becomes blue, it is owing to the presence of copper.

PICO DELLA MIRANDOLA. See MIRAN

DOLA.

PICRIC ACID. See CARBAZOTIC ACID. PICTOU, a N. E co. of Nova Scotia, bordering on Northumberland strait, and drained by several small rivers; area, 845 sq. m.; pop. in 1851, 25,593. Its surface is very much diversified and the soil fertile. It contains extensive mines of coal.-PICTOU, the capital, is situated on the N. shore of an extensive harbor, near the E. end of Northumberland strait, in lat 45° N., long. 63° 10′ W., 64 m. N. E. from Halifax; pop. about 2,500. The houses are principally built of wood, and there is a neat church, an academy in connection with the Presbyterian church, a grammar school, a library, and a lighthouse at the S. side of the entrance to the harbor. Pictou is a place of rising importance, and has increased very much since the coal mines and quarries of building stone were opened in the neighborhood. Ship building is carried on; and in 1859, 49 vessels of an aggregate of 10,103 tons belonged to the port. The exports consist chiefly of coal, building stone, dried fish, and potatoes. During the year ending Sept. 30, 1859, 105,528 tons of coal were shipped; and the value of the imports was $80,445. In the same year 386 vessels of an aggregate of 64,123 tons cleared from Pictou for ports in the United States.

PICTS, an ancient people of North Britain, inhabiting the eastern coast and lowlands of Scotland. They are first mentioned in a speech of the rhetorician Eumenius, A. D. 296, to the emperor Constantius Chlorus on his return from the victory over Allectus. After this they are frequent ly spoken of by Roman historians, and Ammianus Marcellinus in the annals of A. D. 368 says that they were divided into the Dicalidone and Vecturiones. According to the account of the Scottish historians, they were brought in 843 under the dominion of Kenneth II., who thus for the first time made all Scotland subject to one king. Their name of Picti (painted) is supposed to have been derived from their custom of painting their bodies. It has been a subject of dispute whether they were of Celtic or Teutonic descent, the latter opinion being maintained by Usher, Stillingfleet, and Pinker

ton, the former by Camden, Bishop Lloyd, Father Innes, George Chalmers, and Ritson. Their language bore some resemblance to the Welsh, and it was the opinion of Camden that the modern Welsh are of Pictish origin. Architectural remains of a singular character still exist in various parts of Scotland, and are there popularly called Picts' houses; and traditions of a people of that name of uncommon bodily strength have survived to this day.

It is

PICTS' WORK DITCH. See CATRAIL. PIEDMONT (Ital. piè di monte, foot of the mountain), a division in the N. W. of Italy, no longer having a distinct political existence, bounded N. by Switzerland, E. by Lombardy and Parma, S. by Genoa, and W. by France; area, 11,393 sq. m. It is enclosed on 3 sides by a stupendous mountain barrier, and opens on the 4th toward the rest of Italy. completely drained by the Po and its tributaries, of which there are 28 on the right bank and 25 on the left. In the intense heat of summer the ground of the plains toward Lombardy becomes so scorched that crops are only saved by a system of irrigation which is developed to great perfection. Some half a million acres are scored with artificial channels; for the privilege of using the water a tax is levied. Thus districts once waste and occupied by a scanty and impoverished population have been reclaimed and are now the granary of the old Sardinian states. Maize and barley are extensively raised; the former is the chief article of food, and the latter is fed to swine. Tobacco being a royal monopoly, its cultivation is strictly prohibited. The silk of Piedmont is the best in Italy, and its silk manufactures are important. Common linens, woollens, and cottons, hosiery, paper, leather, cutlery, beer and other liquors, glass, and iron are manufactured.-Piedmont first took a place in history under the reign of Tommaso I. of Savoy (11881233). It has constantly shared the fortunes of that house, during the many wars in which it has borne a part in Italy and Europe. It became a principality in 1424, was merged in the kingdom of Sardinia in 1718, and with Sardinia in the kingdom of Italy under Victor Emanuel in 1861.

PIERCE. I. A W. co. of Wis., bounded W. by the St. Croix and S. W. by the Mississippi, and drained by the Rush and other rivers; area, about 600 sq. m.; pop. in 1860, 4,674. It has a broken surface covered by prairie and forest, and the soil is fertile. Capital, Prescott. II. A S. E. co. of Minn., bounded S. W. by the Minnesota or St. Peter's river and Big Stone lake, and intersected by the Chippewa and Tipsinah rivers; area, about 1,625 sq. m.; pop. in 1860, 10. It has a rolling surface and fertile soil. III. A W. co. of Washington territory, having Puget sound on the W., bordered S. W. by the Nesqually river, and intersected by the Puyalup; area, about 1,500 sq. m.; pop. in 1860, 1,115. It is traversed by the Cascade mountains. Capital, Steilacoom.

PIERCE, FRANKLIN, 14th president of the United States, born in Hillsborough, N. H., Nov. 23, 1804. His father, Gen. Benjamin Pierce, a native of Massachusetts, was one of the earliest settlers in the town of Hillsborough, and served as a soldier and officer throughout the revolutionary war. He was an influential democratic politician, in 1827 and 1829 was elected governor of the state, and died in 1839 at the age of 81. Franklin Pierce received his early education at the academies of Hancock and Francistown; and in 1820 he entered Bowdoin college, at Brunswick, Me. His ambition at this period was of a military cast, and he was a zealous officer in a college company of soldiers in which his future biographer, Nathaniel Hawthorne, was a private. During one of his winter vacations he taught a country school. He was graduated in 1824, and having chosen the law as a profession, became a student in the office of Judge Levi Woodbury at Portsmouth, afterward distinguished as a U.S. senator and a member of the cabinet. Pierce subsequently studied for two years in the law school at Northampton, Mass., and in the office of Judge Parker at Amherst, N. H. He was admitted to the bar in 1827, and began practice at Hillsborough. He did not at first succeed as an advocate, and his first case was a marked failure. He remarked to a friend who condoled with him: "I will try nine hundred and ninety-nine cases, if clients will continue to trust me, and, if I fail just as I have to-day, will try the thousandth. I shall live to argue cases in this court house in a manner that will mortify neither myself nor my friends." For some time politics diverted his attention from his profession. He was an ardent advocate of the election of Gen. Jackson to the presidency, and in 1829 was himself elected by the town of Hillsborough its representative in the state legislature. He served 4 years in that body, and in the last 2 years was chosen speaker, receiving three fourths of all the votes of the house. In 1833 he was elected a member of congress, where he served on the judiciary and other important committees, but did not attain to distinction in debate. He sustained Jackson's opposition to the internal improvement system, and made a speech against the bill authorizing an appropriation for the military academy at West Point, to which institution he was long opposed, though during the Mexican war he saw reason to change his opinion on that subject. On the question of slavery he sided with the South, and opposed anti-slavery measures in every shape. He remained a member of the house of representatives until 1837, when he was elected to the U. S. senate, in which he took his seat as the youngest member, having barely reached the legal age for the position. In the senate at that time were Clay, Webster, Calhoun, Benton, Buchanan, Woodbury, and Silas Wright. Mr. Hawthorne says: "With his usual tact and exquisite sense of propriety, he saw that it was

not the time for him to step forward prominently on this highest theatre in the land. He beheld these great combatants doing battle before the eyes of the nation and engrossing its whole regards. There was hardly an avenue to reputation save what was occupied by one or another of those gigantic figures." He made in 1840 a speech upon revolutionary pensions, and in 1841 another on the removal of persons from office by the new whig administration, and in 1842 resigned his seat and returned to the practice of his profession at Concord, N. H., to which place he had removed from Hillsborough in 1838. He soon became distinguished as an advocate, and in 1846 President Polk offered him the post of U. S. attorney-general, which he declined. He also declined to be a candidate for governor, the nomination to which office had been given to him by a democratic state convention. He still, however, continued to manifest an interest in politics, and vigorously supported the annexation of Texas in opposition to a considerable portion of the democracy of New England. In 1847, when the state of New Hampshire was called upon to furnish troops for the Mexican war, he enrolled himself a member of one of the first volunteer companies of Concord, but did not long remain in the ranks; for on the passage by congress of the bill for the increase of the army he received the appointment of colonel of the 9th regiment, and shortly after was commissioned brigadiergeneral of the army. On May 27 he embarked at Newport with his command, and after a passage of 30 days arrived at Vera Cruz. Three weeks later he led his men to join the main body of the army under Gen. Scott at Puebla, which he reached Aug. 7, after several sharp engagements with guerillas on the way. In the battle of Contreras he was severely hurt by the falling of his horse, but continued during the day at the head of his brigade. In the battle of Churubusco, while leading his men against the enemy, he fell fainting from the pain of his injuries, but refused to quit the field. After the battle, the Mexican commander having opened negotiations for peace, Gen. Scott appointed Gen. Pierce one of the commissioners to arrange the terms of an armistice. The truce was of short duration, and the battles of Molino del Rey and Chapultepec followed, and soon afterward the city of Mexico capitulated. Gen. Pierce remained in the city till December, when, the war being ended, he returned home, and resigning his commission applied himself again to the practice of the law. In 1850 he was elected a member of the convention called by the people of New Hampshire to revise their state constitution, and was chosen president of the convention by an almost unanimous vote. In this position he exerted himself to procure the removal from the constitution of the tests by which Catholics are excluded from certain offices. On June 12, 1852, the democratic national convention assembled at Baltimore, and after 35 ballotings

for a candidate for president of the United States, during which not a vote had been given for Gen. Pierce, the Virginia delegation brought forward his name, and on the 49th ballot he was nominated by 282 votes to 11 for all other candidates. His principal competitors were James Buchanan, Lewis Cass, William L. Marcy, and Stephen A. Douglas. At the ensuing presidential election in November he received the votes of all the states except Massachusetts, Vermont, Kentucky, and Tennessee, whose suffrages were given to Gen. Winfield Scott. Of the votes of the electoral colleges Pierce received 254 and Scott 42. In the midst of this sudden and astonishing political success the president elect was smitten with a terrible domestic calamity. On Jan. 6, 1853, while making with his family a railroad journey from Andover to Lawrence, Mass., the cars were thrown off the track and dashed against rocks, and his only child, Benjamin Pierce, a fine boy of 13, was instantly killed. In his inaugural address, March 4, 1853, President Pierce maintained that slavery is recognized by the constitution, and that the fugitive slave law is constitutional and should be strictly executed. He denounced in strong terms the agitation of the slavery question, which he thought had been settled by the compromises of 1850, and hoped that "no sectional or ambitious or fanatical excitement might again threaten the durability of our institutions, or obscure the light of our prosperity." Three days after his inauguration he appointed his cabinet as follows: William L. Marcy, secretary of state; James Guthrie, secretary of the treasury; Jefferson Davis, secretary of war; James C. Dobbin, secretary of the navy; Robert McClelland, secretary of the interior; James Campbell of Pennsylvania, postmaster-general; and Caleb Cushing, attorney-general. At an early period of his administration President Pierce was called upon to deal with a serious question respecting the boundary between the United States and Mexico, a tract of land between New Mexico and Chihuahua, called the Mesilla valley, being claimed by both countries. The dispute was finally settled by negotiation, and resulted in the acquisition by the United States of the region now known as Arizona. In 1853, under the direction of the war department, various expeditions were organized and sent out to explore the routes proposed for a railroad from the Mississippi to the Pacific, of which voluminous reports have since been published. In the same year a serious dispute with Great Britain on the subject of the fisheries was amicably settled by mutual concessions. While these negotiations were going on, much interest was excited both in the United States and in Europe by the affair of Martin Koszta. (See INGRAHAM, DUNCAN NATHANIEL.) The first congress which met during the administration of President Pierce assembled in Dec. 1853. In the following January Mr. Douglas, then chairman of the senate commit

315

tee on territories, introduced a bill for the organization of two territories, to be called Kansas and Nebraska, in the region W. of Missouri and N. of the parallel of 36° 30'. By the Missouri compromise of 1820-221 slavery had been formally and for ever excluded from this region. By the bill of Mr. Douglas, which was warmly supported by the administration, the Missouri compromise act was repealed and slavery permitted to enter these territories. In spite of the strenuous opposition of the antislavery members of congress, the bill became a law and received the signature of the president on the last day of May. Great excitement and indignation were aroused in the free states by this measure. It was denounced as a flagrant breach of faith, and as the violation of a compromise as sacred as the compromises of the constitution itself. Much dissatisfaction also was produced in the free states by the famous Ostend conference, at which Mr. Buchanan, U. S. minister to Great Britain, Mr. Soulé, minister to Spain, and Mr. Mason, minister to France, were present, and proposed to buy Cuba from Spain for $120,000,000, and in case of her refusal to sell the island to take it by force. A treaty was negotiated at Washington in 1854 between the United States and Great Britain, providing for commercial reciprocity between this country and the British provinces. The treaty with Japan negotiated by Commodore Perry was ratified by the senate at the same session. Two important bills were vetoed by the president, one of which made appropriations for the completion and repair of certain public works, and the other appropriated 10,000,000 acres of the public lands to the states for the relief of the indigent insane. In the spring of 1854, property belonging to American citizens at Greytown in Nicaragua having been stolen and reparation refused by the authorities, the U. S. frigate Cyane was sent there, and on July 13 the place was bombarded and most of it burned. In the following year occurred the fillibuster invasion of Nicaragua by William Walker, whose success in the autumn of 1856 appeared to establish his power, and consequently a minister sent by him to Washington was recognized by the president and diplomatic intercourse opened. In Feb. 1855, a bill that had passed congress for the payment of the French spoliation claims was vetoed by the president, who in the following month also vetoed a bill increasing the annual appropriation for the Collins line of steamers. The other important measures of the same session which received his signature were the bills to reorganize the diplomatic and consular system of the United States; to organize the court of claims; to provide a retired list for the navy; and to confer the title of lieutenant-general on Winfield Scott. At the close of 1854 and during the winter and spring of 1855 circumstances occurred which for a time seriously disturbed the harmony between the governments of the United States and Great Britain. Enlist

ments of recruits for the British army in the Crimea were made secretly in this country under the sanction of Mr. Crampton, the British minister at Washington, whose recall was therefore demanded by the president. This was refused, and the president at length dismissed not only the minister but the British consuls at New York, Philadelphia, and Cincinnati, because of their complicity in the violation of the neutrality laws. The matter was finally settled, and after a vacancy of a few months a new British legation was sent to Washington. The last two years of President Pierce's administration were marked by scenes of domestic discord and sectional dispute concerning affairs in Kansas. (See KANSAS.) On Jan. 24, 1856, the president sent a message to congress in which he represented the formation of a free state government in Kansas as an act of rebellion, and justified the principles of the Kansas and Nebraska act. On June 2 of the same year the national democratic convention met at Cincinnati to nominate a candidate for president. The first ballot stood for James Buchanan, 135; for Franklin Pierce, 122; for Stephen A. Douglas, 33; for Lewis Cass, 6. On subsequent ballots the vote for Pierce gradually diminished, and on the 17th ballot all the votes were given for Mr. Buchanan. Before the adjournment of congress in the following August, the house of representatives made an amendment to the army appropriation bill, providing that no part of the army should be employed to enforce the laws made by the territorial legislature of Kansas, until congress should have decided that it was a valid legislative assembly. The senate refused to concur in this proviso, and congress adjourned without making any provision for the support of the army. The president immediately issued a proclamation calling an extra session to convene on Aug. 21, when the army bill was passed without any proviso, and immediately afterward congress adjourned. It came together again on Dec. 1, and the president's annual message was chiefly devoted to the subject of Kansas, and in its citation of events and expressions of praise it took strong grounds against the free-state party of the country. The session closed on March 3, 1857, and on the following day the administration of President Pierce terminated, and that of James Buchanan commenced. Mr. Pierce soon afterward visited Madeira, and travelled extensively in Europe, from which he returned in 1860. On April 21, 1861, he made a speech to a mass meeting at Concord, N. H., in which he declared himself in favor of the Union against the southern confederacy, and urged the people to give to the national administration a cordial and vigorous support.—The life of Franklin Pierce, to the period of his nomination as candidate for the presidency, has been written by Nathaniel Hawthorne (Boston, 1852).

PIERCE, GEORGE FOSTER, D.D., one of the bishops of the Methodist Episcopal church, South, born in Greene co., Ga., Feb. 8. 1811.

He was graduated at Franklin college in 1829, and afterward began to study law, but resolv ing to become a preacher, was admitted on trial into the Georgia conference at Macon in 1830. With the exception of the year 1881, during which he was stationed in Charleston, S. C., he labored in the regular ministry in various parts of his native state until 1838-9, when he became first president of the Georgia female (now Wesleyan) college in Macon. While here he edited jointly with P. Pendleton the "Southern Lady's Book." In 1848 he was elected president of Emory college, Ga., and continued in that office until his election to the episcopacy at the general conference in Columbus, Ga., in 1854.

PIERER, HEINRICH AUGUST, & German pub lisher, born in Altenburg in 1794, died May 12, 1850. In 1811 he studied medicine Jena, and in 1813 joined the army, rose to the rank of major, and resigned in 1831. He took charge of his father's publishing house in 1835, and completed the Encyklopädisches Wörterbuch (26 vols., Altenburg, 1824–36), commenced by his father, and afterward published a new edition, entirely recast (1840–46). His two sons, Victor and Eugene, continued in the management of the establishment, and published a 3d edition of the encyclopedia under the title of Universal Lexikon (20 vols., Altenburg, 1849'54). A 4th edition commenced in 1857 is not yet completed.

PIERPONT, JOHN, an American poet and clergyman, born in Litchfield, Conn., April 6, 1785. He was graduated at Yale college in 1804, and in 1805 went to South Carolina as private tutor in the family of Col. William Allston. He remained there 4 years, spending part of his time in Charleston and part on the Waccamaw near Georgetown. Returning to Connecticut in 1809, he studied law in the school at Litchfield, and having been admitted to practice at the bar of Essex co., Mass., in 1812, settled at Newburyport, where he delivered before the Washington benevolent society his poem of "The Portrait," included in the collection of his "Patriotic and Political Pieces." Relinquishing the profession of law, which, in consequence of the unsettled state of affairs caused by the war, was by no means lucrative, he went into mercantile business, first in Boston and then in Baltimore, but was unsuccessful. In 1816 he published at Baltimore "Airs of Pales tine," a poem in heroic measure, and soon af ter began the study of theology, first by him self and subsequently in the Harvard theologi cal school. In 1819 he was ordained minister of the Hollis street Congregational church in Boston. He spent a part of 1835-16 in Europe, extending his travels to Constantinople and the ruins of Ephesus. He had been, both in the pulpit and out of the pulpit, in behalf of temperance, anti-slavery, the melioration of prison discipline, and other reforms. The freedom with which he expressed his opin ions, especially in regard to the temperance

an active laborer