Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/575

 P E R P E R 549 misdemeanour at common law, punishable by fine and imprisonment, to swear falsely before any person author ized to administer an oath upon a matter of common con cern, under such circumstances that the false swearing, if committed in judicial proceedings, would have amounted to perjury. There are some cases of making false declara tions which are punishable on summary conviction, e.g., certain declarations under the Eegistration of Births and Deaths Act, 1874, and the Customs Consolidation Act, 1876. A conviction for perjury subjects the person con victed to certain disqualifications. He cannot hold a parish office (4 and 5 Will. IV. c. 76, s. 48). If a solicitor, and he attempt to practise after conviction, he is liable on summary conviction by a judge to seven years penal servitude (12 Geo. I. c. 29, s. 4). If the prosecution be under the statute of Elizabeth, the person convicted is disabled from giving evidence for the future (5 Eliz. c. 9, s. 2). The provisions of the last two Acts may, however, be regarded as virtually obsolete. The perjury of a witness may be a ground for pardon where the perjury has taken place in a criminal trial in which accused was convicted, or for a new trial in a civil action. In order to procure a pardon or a new trial it is generally necessary to show that the witness was a material one, and also that the perjurer has been prosecuted to conviction. In Scotland the law, as a general rule, agrees with that of Eng land. Perjury may be committed by a party on reference to oath as well as by a witness. A witness making a false affirmation is guilty of perjury (28 Viet. c. 9). The Acts 14 and 15 Viet. c. 100 and 22 and 23 Viet. c. 17 do not extend to Scotland. The trial, though usually by the Court of Justiciary, may be by the Court of Session if the perjury is committed in the course of an action before that court. The punishment is penal servitude or imprison ment at the discretion of the court. Formerly a person convicted of perjury was disabled from giving evidence in future ; this dis ability was abolished by 15 Viet. c. 27, s. 1. In the United States the common law has been extended by most States to embrace false affirmations and false evidence in proceedings not judicial. Perjury in the United States courts is dealt with by an Aet of Congress of 3d March 1825, by which the maximum punishment for perjury or subornation of perjury is a fine of 2000 or imprisonment for five years. The jurisdiction of the States to punish perjury committed in the State courts is specially preserved by the same Act. Statutory provisions founded upon 23 Geo. II. c. 11 have been adopted in some States, but not in others. In the States which have not adopted such provisions, the indictment must set out the offence with the particularity necessary at common law. ( J. Wt. ) PERKINS, JACOB (1766-1849), inventor and physicist, was born at Newburyport, Massachusetts, in 1766, and ap prenticed to a goldsmith. He soon made himself known by a variety of useful mechanical inventions, and in 1818 came over to England with a plan for engraving bank-notes on steel, which, though it did not find acceptance at once, ultimately proved a signal success, and was carried out by Perkins in partnership with the English engraver Heath during the rest of his long business life. Perkins con tinued to be fertile of inventions, and his steam-gun, exhibited in 1824, attracted much attention, though the danger attending the use of highly-compressed steam pre vented its practical adoption. His chief contribution to physics lay in the experiments by which he proved the compressibility of water and measured it by a piezometer of his own invention ; see vol. vii. p. 801, and Phil. Trans., 1820, 1826. He retired in 1834, and died in London, 30th July 1849. PERM, a government of Russia, on both slopes of the Ural Mountains, with an area of 128,250 square miles. Though Perm administratively belongs entirely to Russia in Europe, its eastern part (about 57,000 square miles) is situated in Siberia, in the basin of the Obi. It is traversed from north to south by the Ural range, a low ridge, from 30 to 45 miles in width, thickly covered with forests, and deeply excavated by rivers. The highest summits do not rise above 3600 feet in the northern section of the range (the Vogulian Ural) ; in the central portion, between 59 and 60 30 N. lat., they once or twice exceed 5000 feet (Denezhkin, 5027 feet, and Konzhakovskii Kamen, 5135 feet) ; but the chain soon sinks towards the south, where it barely attains an elevation of 3000 feet. Where the great Siberian road crosses the ridge the highest point is 1400 feet. Westward the plain of the river Kama is still 500 feet above sea-level at a distance of 120 miles from the main watershed, but to the east the secondary ridges. and spurs of the central chain fall away somewhat more rapidly, Kamyshloff, 100 miles distant, being situated amidst the lowlands of the Obi at an altitude of less than 200 feet. The geology of Perm has been the subject of very many investigations since the journeys of Humboldt and Mur- chison ; but several parts of the government still remain unexplored. Granites, diorites, porphyries, serpentines, and Laurentian gneisses and limestones, containing iron, copper, and zinc ores, constitute the main axis of the Ural chain ; their western slope is covered by a narrow strip of Huronian crystalline slates, which disappear in the east under the Post -Tertiary deposits of the Siberian lowlands, while on the west narrow strips of Silurian limestones, quartzites, and slates, and separate islands of Devonian deposits appear on the surface. These in their turn are covered with Carboniferous clays and sandstones, containing Coal-measures in several isolated basins. The Permian deposits extend as a regiilar strip, parallel to the main ridge, over these last, and are covered with the so- called &quot;variegated marls,&quot; which are now considered as Triassic, and which appear only in the western corner of the territory. Perm is the chief mining region of Russia, owing to its wealth in iron, silver, platinum, copper, nickel, lead, chrome ore, and auriferous alluvial deposits. Many rare metals, besides, such as iridium, osmium, rhodium, and ruthenium, are found along with the above, as also a great variety of precious stones, such as sapphires, jacinths, beryls, phenacites, chrysoberyls, emeralds, aquamarines, topazes, amethysts, jades, malachite. Salt-springs appear in the west ; and the mineral waters, though still little known, are also worthy of mention. The government is very well watered by rivers belonging to the Petchora, Tobol (affluent of the Obi), and Kama systems. The Petchora itself rises in the northern corner of the government, and its tributary the Volosnitsa is sepa rated by a distance of only 4900 yards from the navi gable Vogulka, a tributary of the Kama, a circumstance of some commercial importance. The tributaries of the Tobol (Sosva, Tura, Isset, and Ui) are far more important. Their sources, which approach those of the tributaries of the Kama very closely, early became a link between Russia and Siberia, and the first section of the Siberian railway (completed for 312 miles from Perm to Ekaterinburg) has been planned to connect the Kama at Perm Avith the Tura at Tumen, whence there is a navigable route by the Siberian rivers to the very heart of western Siberia at Tomsk. The chief river of Perm is, however, the Kama, whose great navigable tributaries the Tchusovaya, Sylva, and Kolva are important channels for the export of the heavy iron goods to Russia, 5,000,000 cwts., valued at upwards of 2,000,000, being annually shipped on these rivers to the Volga. Timber also is floated down many of the smaller streams. Altogether, the rivers supply to some extent the want of roads or the defects of those which exist, the great Siberian highway even (ria Kazan, Okhansk, Perm, Ekaterinburg, and Tumen) being usually in a bad state. The government is dotted with a great number of lakes of comparatively trifling size, and marshes also are extensive