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 are also of importance. Apart from the Sone canal, irrigation is largely practised from private channels and also from wells. The district is traversed by the main line of the East Indian railway, with two branches south to Gaya and Bihar.

extended across both sides of the Ganges. It comprised the seven districts of Patna, Gaya, Shahabad, Saran, Champaran, Muzaffarpur and Darbhanga. Total area, 23,748 sq. m.; pop. (1901), 15,514,987. In 1908 the four last districts north of the Ganges were formed into the new division of Tirhut; and the name of Patna division was confined to the three first districts south of the Ganges.

PATNA, one of the Orissa tributary states in Bengal, with an area of 2399 sq. m. It lies in the basin of the Mahanadi river, and is divided by a forest-clad hilly tract into a northern and a southern portion, both of which are undulating and well cultivated. Pop. (1901), 277,748, showing a decrease of 16% in the decade, mainly due to the effects of famine in 1900. Nearly the whole population consists of Oriyas. The capital is Bolangir: pop. (1901), 3706. The principal crop is rice. The maharajahs of Patna were formerly heads of a group of states known as the athara garhjat or “eighteen forts.” They are Chauhban Rajputs, and claim to have been established in Patna for six centuries. Patna was the scene of a rebellion of the Khonds, followed by atrocities on the part of their rulers, in 1869, and, in consequence, came under British management in 1871. The maharaja Ramchandra Singh, installed in 1894, was insane and put an end to his own life in the following year, whereupon his uncle, Lai Dalganjan Singh, became chief, undertaking to administer with the assistance of a diwan or minister appointed by the British government. The powers of this official were extended in 1900 after a serious outbreak of dacoity. Till 1905 the state was included in the Central Provinces.

PATOIS, a French term strictly confined to the dialect of a district or locality in a country which has a common literary language, often used of the form of a common language as spoken by illiterate or uneducated persons, marked by vulgarisms in pronunciation, grammar, &c. The origin of the word is not certain. It has been taken to be a corruption of patrois, from Low Lat. partriensis, of or belonging to one’s patria, or native country, fatherland.

PATON, JOHN BROWN (1830–), British Nonconformist divine, was born on the 17th of December 1830. He was educated at London, Poole and Spring Hill College, Birmingham; he graduated B.A. at London University in 1849, and was Hebrew and New Testament prizeman in 1850 and gold medallist in philosophy in 1854. He received the honorary degree of doctor of divinity from Glasgow University in 1881. When the Nottingham Congregational Institute was founded in 1863 he became the first principal, a post which he held till 1898, when he was succeeded by James Alexander Mitchell (1849–1905), who from 1903 till his death was general secretary of the Congregational Union. Paton became vice-president of the British and Foreign Bible Society in 1907. He took an active part in the foundation and direction of a number of societies for religious and social work, notably the National Home Reading Union Society and English Land Colonization Society, and was a constant contributor to literary reviews. His publications include The Two-fold Alternative (3rd ed., 1900), The Inner Mission of the Church (new ed., 1900), and two volumes of collected essays. His son, John Lewis Paton (b. 1863), who headed the Cambridge classical tripos in 1886, became head master of Manchester grammar school in 1903.

PATON, SIR JOSEPH NOEL (1821–1901), British painter, was born, on the 13th of December 1821, in Woolers Alley, Dunfermline, where his father, a fellow of the Scottish Society of Antiquaries, carried on the trade of a damask manufacturer. He showed strong artistic inclinations in early childhood, but had no regular art training, except a brief period of study in the Royal Academy School in 1843. He gained a prize of £200 in the first Westminster Hall competition, in 1845, for his cartoon “The Spirit of Religion,” and in the following year he exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy his “Quarrel of Oberon and Titania.” A companion fairy picture, “The Reconciliation of Oberon and Titania” went to Westminster Hall in 1847, and for it and his picture of “Christ bearing the Cross” he was awarded a prize of £300 by the Fine Arts Commissioners. The two Oberon pictures are in the National Gallery of Scotland, where they have long been a centre of attraction. His first exhibited picture, “Ruth Gleaning,” appeared at the Royal Scottish Academy in 1844. He began to contribute to the Royal Academy of London in 1856. Throughout his career his preference was for allegorical, fairy and religious subjects. Among his most famous pictures are “The Pursuit of Pleasure” (1855), “Mors Janua Vitae” (1866), “Oskold and the Elle-maids” (1874), and “In Die Malo” (1882). Sir Noel Paton also produced a certain amount of sculpture, more notable for design than for searching execution. He was elected an associate of the Royal Scottish Academy in 1847, and a full member in 1850; he was appointed Queen’s Limner for Scotland in 1866, and received knighthood in 1867. In 1878 the University of Edinburgh conferred upon him the degree of LL.D. He was a poet of distinct merit, as his Poems by a Painter (1861) and Spindrift (1867) pleasantly exemplified. He was also well known as an antiquary, his hobby, indeed, being the collection of arms and armour. Sir Noel died in Edinburgh on the 26th of December 1901. His eldest son, Diarmid Noel Paton (b. 1859), became regius professor of physiology in Glasgow in 1906; and another son, Frederick Noel Paton (b. 1861), became in 1905 director of commercial intelligence to the government of India.

PATRAS (Gr. Patrai), the chief fortified seaport town on the west coast of Greece, and chief town of the province of Achaea and Elis, on a gulf of the same name, 70 m. W.N.W. of Corinth. There are two railway stations, one in the north-east on the line to Athens (via Corinth), the other on the line to Pyrgos. Pop. (1889), 33,529; (1907), 37,401. It has been rebuilt since 1821 (the War of Independence), and is the seat of a Greek archbishop and' an appeal court. It is the chief port of Greece, from which the great bulk of its currants are dispatched. The port, formed by a mole and a breakwater, begun in 1880, offers a fair harbour for vessels drawing up to 22 ft. The exports consist of currants, sultanas, valonea, tobacco, olive oil, olives in brine, figs, citrons, wine, brandy, cocoons, and lamb, goat, and kid skins. The imports consist chiefly of colonial produce, manufactured goods and sulphate of copper. The two most interesting buildings are the castle, a medieval structure on the site of the ancient acropolis, and the cathedral of St Andrew, which is highly popular as the reputed burial-place of the saint.

The foundation of Patras goes back to prehistoric times, the legendary account being that Eumelus, having been taught by Triptolemus how to grow grain in the rich soil of the Glaucus valley, established three townships, Aroe (i.e. plough land), Antheia (the flowery), and Mesatis (the middle settlement), which were united by the common worship of Artemis Triclaria at her shrine on the river Meilichus. The Achaeans having strengthened and enlarged Aroe, called it Patrae, as the exclusive residence of the ruling families, and it was recognized as one of the twelve Achaean cities. In 419 the town was, by the advice of Alcibiades, connected with its harbour by long walls in imitation of those at Athens. The whole armed force was destroyed by Meteilus after the defeat of the Achaeans at Scarpheia, and many of the remaining inhabitants forsook the city; but after the battle of Actium Augustus restored the ancient name Aroe, introduced a military colony of veterans from the 10th and 12th legions (not, as is usually said, the 22nd), and bestowed the rights of coloni on the inhabitants of Rhypae and Dyme, and all the Locri Ozolae except those of Amphissa. Colonia Augusta Aroe Patrensis became one of the most populous of all the towns of Greece; its colonial coinage extends