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 changes have been made. “Our Father which art in Heaven” is changed to “Who art in Heaven”; “Them that trespass” is changed to “Those who trespass.” The Ornaments Rubric and the Black Rubric are omitted. The Communion Office is more like the Scottish office, having the Oblation and Invocation. Instead of the Commandments may be said our Lord's summary of the law. Special prayers and thanksgiving have been added, to be used upon several occasions. A form of the consecration of a church has been introduced, as well as an office for the institution of a minister and an office for the visitation of prisoners. The last revision of the American Prayer Book was in 1892; gospels for the Festival of the Transliguration and for the early celebration of the Holy Communion on 'Christmas Day and Easter Day were added; and a greater flexibility in the use of the Prayer Book was permitted. The statistics as reported by the General Convention of 1907 are as follows: the whole number of clergy, 5329; deacons ordained, 483 priests ordained, 471;candidates for holy orders, 469; postulants, 323; lay readers, 2464; baptisms, 197,203; persons confirmed, 158,931; cominumcants, 871,862; Sunday School officers and teachers, 47,871; pupils, 446,367; parishes and missions, 7615; church edifices, 7028; rectories, 2530; church hospitals, 72; orphan asylums, 57; homes, 84; academic institutions, 22; collegiate, 17; theological, 23; other institutions, 79; total contributions for all purposes, $52,257,519; episcopal fund, 83,499,838; hospitals and other institutions, $17,509,035

.—J. S. M. Anderson, History of the Church of England in the Colonies (3 vols., 2nd ed., London, 1856); Leighton Coleman, The Church in America (New York, 1895); A. L. Cross, The Anglican Episcopate and the American Colonies (New York, 1902); H. W. Foote, Annals of King's Chapel (2 vols., Boston, 1882–1887); George Hodges, Three Hundred Years of the Episcopal Church in America (Philadelphia, 1906); W. S. Perry, History of the American Episcopal Church, 1587–1883, with Monographs (2 vols., Boston, 1885); W. S. Perry, Historical Collections Relating to the Episcopal Colonial Church, covering Virginia, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Maryland and Delaware (4 vols., Hartford, 1870); S. D. McConnell, History of the American Episcopal Church (New York, 1890); D. D. Addison, The Episcopalians (New York, 1902); C. C. Tiffany, A History of the Protestant Episcopal Church (New York, 1905). (D. D. A.)

PROTEUS, in Greek mythology, a prophetic old man of the sea. According to Homer, his resting-place was the island of Pharos, near the mouth of the Nile; in Virgil his home is the island of Carpathus, between Crete and Rhodes. He knew all things past, present and future, but was loth to tell what he knew. Those who would consult him had first to surprise and bind him during his noonday slumber in a cave by the sea, where he was wont to pass the heat of the day surrounded by his seals. Even when caught he would try to escape by assuming all sorts of shapes: now he was a lion, now a serpent, a leopard, a boar, a tree, fire, water. But if his captor held him fast the god at last returned to his proper shape, gave the wished-for answer, and then plunged into the sea. He was subject to Poseidon, and acted as shepherd to his “flocks.” In post-Homeric times the story ran that Proteus was the son of Poseidon and a king of Egypt, to whose court Helen was taken by Hermes after she had been carried off, Paris being accompanied to Troy by a phantom substituted for her. This is the story followed by Herodotus (ii. 112, 118), who got it from Egyptian priests, and by Euripides in the Helena. From his power of assuming whatever shape he pleased Proteus came to be regarded, especially by the Orphic mystics, as a symbol of the original matter from which the world was created. Rather he is typical of the ever-changing aspect of the sea (Homer, Odyssey, iv. 351; Virgil, Georgics, iv. 386).

 PROTEUS (Proteus anguinus), in zoology, a blind perenni-branchiate tailed Batrachian, inhabiting the subterranean waters of the limestone caves to the east of the Adriatic from Carniola to Herzegovina. It was long supposed to be the sole representative of the Batrachians in the cave fauna, but other examples have been added in recent years. It is a small eel-like animal, with minute limbs, the anterior of which are tridactyle, the posterior didactyle, with a strongly compressed tail, a narrow head, with flat truncate snout, minute rudimentary eyes hidden under the skin, which is usually colourless, or rather flesh-coloured, with the short, plume-like external gills blood-red; the jaws and palate are toothed. This extraordinary Batrachian has been found in a great number of different caves, but rather sporadically, and it is believed that its real home is in deeper subterranean waters, whence it is expelled at times of floods. It is often kept in aquariums, where it may turn almost black, and has bred in captivity. Proteus forms with Necturus (Menobranchus) the family Proteidae. The second genus, which is widely distributed in eastern North America, is more generalized in its structure, having better developed limbs, with four digits, and is adapted to live in the light. But the two are closely allied, and Necturus gives us a very exact idea of what sort of a type Proteus must be derived from.

In 1896 a Proteus-like Batrachian was discovered in Texas during the operation of boring an artesian whenvit was shot out with a number of remarkable and unknown Crustaceans. Typhlomolge rathbuni (see fig.), as this creature was called, agrees with Proteus in the shape of the head, in the absence of functional eyes, in the presence of external gills, and in the unpigmented skin. It differs in the very short body and the long slender limbs with four to five digits. It was first placed in the same family as Proteus, but the anatomical investigations of Ellen ]. Emerson have led this author to believe that the real affinities are with the larval form of the lungless salamander Spelerpes, not with Necturus and Proteus. Whilst Proteus has lungs in addition to the gills, Typhlomolge lacks the lungs, and with them the trachea and larnyx. It is therefore probable that Typhlomolge is a permanent larva derived from Spelerpes, whilst we are quite unable to assign any direct ancestor to Necturus.

Another blind Urodele has recently been described as Typhlotriton spelaeus, from caves in the Mississippi Valley. It has neither gills nor lungs in the adult, and is found under rocks in or out of the water. It is not allied to Proteus. The eyes are apparently normal in the larva, but in the adult they have undergone marked degeneration.

See P. Configliachi and M. Rusconi, Del Proteo anguino (Pavia, 1819), 4; ]. de Bedriaga, Lurchfauna Europas (1897), ii. 28; E. Zeller, Uber die Fortpjianzung des Proteus anguinus., Iahresb. ver. Nat. Wurttemb. (1889), p. 13I; L. Steineger, “ New Genus and Species of Blind Cave Salamanders from North America, ” P.U.S. Nat. Mus. (1892), xv. 115; idem, “ New Genus and Species of Blind, Tailed Batrachiansufrom the Subterranean Waters of Texas, ” op. cit. (1896), xvm. 619; Ellen J. Emerson, “ General Anatomy of Typhlomolge rathbuni, ” P. Boston Soc. N.H. (1905), xxxii. 43. Well 188 ft. deep,

Typhlomolge

rathbuni.

 PROTHESIS (Gr. , a setting forth, from  , to set forward or before), in the liturgy of the Orthodox Eastern Church, the name given to the act of “setting forth” the oblation, i.e. the arranging of the bread on the paten, the signing of the cross ( ) on the bread with the sacred spear, the mixing of the chalice, and the veiling of the paten and chalice (see F. E. Brightman, Liturgies Eastern and Western, 1896). The term is also used, architecturally, for the place in which this ceremony takes place, a chamber on the north side of the central apse in a Greek church, with a small table. During the reign of Justin II. (565–574) this chamber was located in an apse, and another apse was added on the south side for the (q.v.), so that from his time the Greek church was triapsal. In the churches in central Syria the ritual was apparently not the same, as both pro thesis and diaconica are generally rectangular, and the former, according to De Vogué, constituted a chamber for the deposit of offerings by the faithful. Consequently it is sometimes placed on the south side, if when so placed it was more accessible to the pilgrims. There is always a much Wider doorway to the pro thesis than to the diaconicon, and there are cases where a side doorway from the