Prune

See Plum.

Prusa, Or Prusias

See Brusa.

Prussian Blue

Prussian Blue. See Prussian Blue.

Prussian Blue #1

See Potassium.

Prussic Acid

See Hydrocyanic Acid.

Pruth

Pruth (anc. Poras), a river of Europe, which rises in the N. E. Carpathians, on the boundary between the Hungarian county of Mármaros and Galicia, flows E. through the latter country and Bukowina, and S. S. E. along the boundary line of Roumania and Bessarabia, and joins the Danube at Reni, near the delta of the latter river. The length of its course is about 350 m. The Pruth figures conspicuously in the history of every Turko-Rus-sian war since the times of Peter the Great, who in 1711 narrowly escaped being captured on its banks, with his army.

Przemysl

Przemysl, a town of Austrian Galicia, on the San, at the junction of the Lemberg and Cracow and the Hungaro-Galician railways, 55 m. W. of Lemberg; pop. in 1870, 15,184 (against 9,800 in 1857), including more than 5,000 Jews. It is one of the oldest towns of Poland. It has many Gothic churches, including two ancient cathedrals, is the seat of a Catholic and a Greek United bishop, and has a gymnasium and other schools. The principal trade is in timber, leather, and linens.

Psaltery

Psaltery (Gr. ), a stringed musical instrument in use among the ancient Jews, and supposed to have been identical with the nebel mentioned in the Psalms. Burney says it resembled partly the lyre and partly the harp, but according to others it was in shape a trapezium, not unlike the dulcimer. (See Dulcimer).

Psammenitus

Psammenitus (Psammetik III.), the last king of Egypt of the 26th dynasty, succeeded his father Amasis in 526 B. C. He had scarcely begun his reign when Egypt was invaded by Cambyses, king of Persia, who defeated him near Pelusium, shut him up in Memphis, and soon forced him to surrender (525). He was at first spared, but, being suspected of treasonable designs, was condemned to put an end to his life.

Psammetichus

See Egypt, vol. vi., p. 463.

Psychology

See Philosophy.

Ptah, Or Phthah

Ptah, Or Phthah, one of the principal divinities of ancient Egypt. He was believed to be the author of everything visible, the father of the god of the sun, and the ruler of light and fire. His seat of adoration was at Memphis, and his temple, said to have been founded by Menes, was one of the largest and most magnificent in Lower Egypt. At Hermopolis Magna were worshipped eight children of Ptah, representing the elements, and the immediate rulers of the world. Ptah's symbol was the scaraboeus sacer, which insect was supposed to multiply without bearing, and many monuments depict Ptah with this animal instead of a head upon the shoulders. He is sometimes represented in the diminutive form of a child or a dwarf, presumably as suggestive of his being the god of the beginning, and occasionally also in the swaddlings of a mummy, which was probably intended to suggest his attribute of immutability. The Greeks compared him to their god Hephaestus. (See Vulcan).