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Rh bishop and the benediction of an abbot. The pastoral staff is carried in the left hand, in order that the right may remain free to give the blessing. The bishop is directed so to hold it {Cerem. episc. ii. 8, 25) that the crook is turned towards the people. It is used not only at pontifical High Mass but at all solemn pontifical functions, e.g. vespers, consecrations, processions. It is uncertain at what period the use of the pastoral staff was introduced; but the evidence tends to show that it was about the 8th century, in Gaul or Spain. The pastoral staff was certainly in use in Gaul in the 6th century (V''ila S. Caesar. Arelat.'' ii. 18), in Spain at least as early as the 7th, and in Ireland also in the 7th; in Italy, so far as the available evidence shows, its introduction was comparatively late. It had originally nothing of its present liturgical character; this was given to it in the post-Carolingian period. As regards the development of the form of the pastoral staff, there are four principal types: (1) staves with a simple crook, the oldest form, which survived in Ireland until the 12th century; (2) staves with a ball or knob at the top, a rare form which did not long survive as a pastoral staff; (3) staves with a horizontal crook, so-called Tau-staves, used especially by abbots and surviving until the 13th century; (4) staves with crook bent inwards. These last already appear in miniatures of the 9th century; from the 11th onwards they predominated; and in the 13th century they ousted all other forms. Originally plain, the crook was from the 11th century onwards often made in the form of a snake (5), which in richer staves encircled the Lamb of God or the representation of a figure. Since the 13th century the snake, under Gothic influence, developed into a boldly designed tendril set with leaves, which usually encircled a figure or group of figures, and the knob dividing shaft and crook into an elegant chapel (6 and 7). Finally, at the close of the middle ages, the lower part of the crook was bent outwards so that the actual volute came over the middle of the knob, the type that remained dominant from that time onwards (8). As a decoration, rather than for practical reasons, a fine folded cloth (pannisellus, sudarium, velum, Eng. veil), was from the 14th century onward often suspended from the knob of the pastoral staff. This was done both in the case of bishops' and of abbots' staves, but is now confined to the latter (Cerem. episc. i. 11, 5; Decr. Alex. VII. 27 Sept. 1659; Sacr. Congr. Rit. 27 Sept. 1847).

From the pastoral staff must be distinguished the staff of the chorepiscopus (director of the choir) and cantors, which is still in use here and there. This, which is also known as bordonus, was developed out of the choir-staves, originally no more than sticks to lean on during the long services.

The Reformation abolished the pastoral staff almost everywhere. In the Church of England, however, it was retained among the episcopal ornaments prescribed by the first Prayerbook of Edward VI., and, though omitted in the second Prayerbook, its use seemed once more to be enjoined under the Ornaments Rubric of Elizabeth's Prayer-book. Whatever the theoretical value of this injunction may have been, however, in practice the use of the pastoral staff was discontinued until its gradual revival in the last decades of the 19th century.

In the Churches of the East, a pastoral staff (Gr. , Russ. possoch, paterissa, Syr. and Nest. chutra, Arm. gavazan hayrapetatz, Copt. šbot) is borne among the Syrians only by the patriarch, in all the other rites by all bishops, in the Greek

Church also by archimandrites and abbots, and in the Armenian Church sdso by the vartapeds (teachers). The staff of Armenian bishops is reminiscent of that of the West, from which it is apparently derived; that of the vartapeds is encircled at the upper end by one or two snakes. The Coptic patriarch uses an iron cross-staff. For the rest, the pastoral staff in the Oriental rites is T-shaped. It is of wood inlaid with ivory and mother-of-pearl. A veil is attached to the staff among the Greeks, Armenians and Copts. The bishops of the Coptic, Syrian and Nestorian Uniate Churches have adopted the Roman pastoral staff.

 PATAGONIA, the name given to that portion of South America which, to the east of the Andes, lies mainly south of the Rio Negro (41° S.), and, to the west of the Andes, south of the Chilean province of Llanquihué (42° S.). The Chilean portion embraces the two provinces of Chiloe and Magallanes. East of the Andes the Argentine portion of Patagonia is divided into four territories: (i) Neuquen, 42,000 sq. m. approximately, including the triangle between the rivers Limay and Neuquen, and extending southward to the northern shore of Lake Nahuel-Huapi (41° S.) and northward to the Rio Colorado; (2) Rio Negro, 76,000 sq. m. approximately, extending from the Atlantic to the Cordillera of the Andes, to the north of 42°S.; (3) Chubut, 95,000 sq. m. approximately, embracing the region between 42° and 46° S.; and (4) that portion of the province of Santa Cruz which stretches from the last-named parallel as far south as the dividing fine with Chile, and between Point Dungeness and the watershed of the Cordillera, an area approximately of 106,000 sq. m.

Physiography.—The general character of the Argentine portion of Patagonia is for the most part a region of vast steppe-like plains, rising in a succession of abrupt terraces about 300 ft. at a time, and covered with an enormous bed of shingle almost bare of vegetation. In the hollows of the plains are ponds or lakes of brackish and fresh water. Towards the Andes the shingle gives place to porphyry, granite and basalt lavas, animal life becomes more abundant and vegetation more luxuriant, acquiring the characteristics of the flora of the western coast, and consisting principally of the beech and conifers.

Among the depressions by which the plateau is intersected transversely, the principal are the Gualichu, south of the Rio Negro, the Maquinchau and Balcheta (through which previously flowed the waters of lake Nahuel-Huapi, which now feed the river Limay); the Senguerr, the Deseado. Besides these transverse depressions (some of them marking lines of ancient inter-oceanic communication), there are others which were occupied by more or less extensive lakes, such as the Yagagtoo, Musters and Colhuapi, and others situated to the south of Puerto Deseado, in the centre of the country. In the central region volcanic eruptions, which have taken part in the formation of the plateau from the Tertiary period down to the present era, cover a large part with basaltic lava-caps; and in the western third more recent glacial deposits appear above the lava. There, in contact with folded Cretaceous rocks, uplifted by the Tertiary granite, erosion, caused principally by the sudden melting and retreat of the ice, aided by tectonic changes, has scooped out a deep longitudinal depression, which generally separates the plateau from the first lofty hills, the ridges generally called the pre-Cordillera, while on the west of these there is a similar longitudinal depression all along the foot of the snowy Andean Cordillera. This latter depression contains the richest and most fertile land of Patagonia.

The geological constitution is in accordance with the orographic physiognomy. The Tertiary plateau, flat on the east, gradually rising on the west, shows Upper Cretaceous caps at its base. First come Lower Cretaceous hills, raised by granite and dioritic rocks, undoubtedly of Tertiary origin, as in some cases these rocks have broken across the Tertiary beds, so rich in mammal remains; then follow, on the west, metamorphic schists of uncertain age; then quartzites appear, resting directly on the primitive granite and gneiss which form the axis of the Cordillera. Porphyritic rocks occur between the schists and the quartzites. The Tertiary deposits are greatly varied in character, and there is considerable difference of opinion concerning the succession and correlation of the beds. They are divided by Wilckens into the following series (in ascending order):—


 * 1. Pyrotherium-Notostylops beds. Of terrestrial origin, containing remains of mammalia. Eocene and Oligocene.