Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/47

Rh P S A P S K 35 quiring a plectrum, may, as some suppose, have been a kind of guitar, rather a tamboura, the most extensively known Eastern stringed instrument, which, in principle, is found represented in the oldest Egyptian monuments. The paucity of strings in the latter is, however, against this attribution. Nothing being more variable than the number of strings attached to the various stringed instru- ments at different times and in different places, eight, nine, or ten strings to the Kivvpa, or ten (see Ps. xxxiii. 2, cxliv. 9, Heb.) or twelve to the vd/3X.a, are probably immaterial variations. The musical instruments of the Bible are the most difficult subject in musical archaeology, about which the translators of the A.V. or the Prayer-Book Psalms did not trouble themselves, but named the instruments from those in use around them. PSAMMETICHUS. See EGYPT, vol. vii. p. 743. PSELLUS, the name of several By/an tine writers, of whom the following were the most important. 1 . MICHAEL PSELLUS the elder, a native of Andros and a pupil of Photius. He flourished in the second half of the 9th century, and strove to stein the rising tide of bar- barism by his devotion to letters and philosophy. His study of the Alexandrine theology, as well as of profane literature, brought him under the suspicions of the ortho- dox, and a former pupil of his, by name Constantine, accused him in an elegiac poem of having abandoned Christianity. In order to perfect his knowledge of Christ- ian doctrine, Psellus had recourse to the instructions of Photius, and then replied to his adversary in a long iambic poem, in which he maintained his orthodoxy. It has been conjectured by Allatius, Cave, and others that some of the books commonly attributed to the younger Psellus are the works of the elder, e.g., the Dialogue on Operations of Demons, and the short treatises On the Virtues of Stones and On Demons. Their reasons, however, resting on the inferiority of literary style and mode of treatment, are inconclusive. 2. MICHAEL CONSTANTINE PSELLUS the younger was born at Constantinople in 1020, of a consular and patrician family. He studied at Athens, and by his talents and vast industry made himself master of all the learning of the age, including theology, law, physics, mathematics, philosophy, and history. At Constantinople he taught philosophy, rhetoric, and dialectic with the greatest suc- cess, and was honoured with the title of " Prince of Philosophers " by the emperors, who sometimes sought his advice and employed his services. But in 1078, when his pupil, the emperor Michael Ducas, was deposed, Psellus shared his downfall, being compelled by the new emperor, Nicephorus Botanias, to retire to a monastery. On his accession to the empire in 1081 Alexius Comnenus de- prived Psellus of his title of " Prince of Philosophers " and transferred it to his less talented rival John the Italian. He appears to have been still alive in 1105 and perhaps in 1110. Of his works, which are very numerous, many have not yet been printed. Even of those which have been printed there is no com- plete edition. Of his published works we may mention (1) his mathematical Opus in quatuor Mathematicas Disciplinas, Arith- meticam, Musicam, Gcometriam, et Astronomiam, published at Venice in 1532, and several times reprinted, as at Basel in 1556 with the notes of Xylarider ; (2) a Paraphrase of Aristotle's Uepl ^p/xijm'as, published in Greek by Aldus at Venice in 1503 ; (3) Synopsis legum, in iambic verse, edited with a Latin translation and notes by Franciscus Bosquetus, Paris, 1632 ; (4) De Vitiis et Virtu- tibus, et Allegoric, in iambic verse, published by Arsenius at Rome (no date), and reprinted at Basel, 1544 ; (5) Ilepl evepyeias 8ain6vui> didXoyos (De operatione dsemonum dialor/us), translated into Latin by Petrus Morellus and published at Paris in 1577 ; (6) De lapidum virtutibus, published in Greek and Latin at Toulouse in 1615 (for 5 and 6 see MICHAEL PSELLTJS above). PSEUDONYMOUS LITERATURE. See BIBLIO- GRAPHY, vol. iii. pp. 657-658. PSKOFF, a government of the lake -region of north- west Russia, which extends from Lake Peipus to the source of the Dwina, having St Petersburg on the N., Novgorod, Tver, and Smolensk on the E., Vitebsk on the S., and Livonia on the W. It has an area of 16,678 square miles. In the south-east it extends partly over the Alaun heights a broad ridge 800 to 1000 feet above the sea, deeply in- dented with numerous valleys and ravines, thickly covered with forests, and dotted with small lakes and ponds. In the district of Toropets these heights take the name of Vorobiovy Hills ; extending westwards into Vitebsk, they send to the north a series of irregular ranges, separated by broad valleys, which occupy the north-western parts of Pskoff and give rise to the rivers flowing into Lakes Peipus and Ilmeii. A depression 120 miles long and 35 miles broad, watered by the Lovat and Polist, occupies the inter- val between the two hilly tracts ; it is covered throughout with forests and thickly studded with marshes overgrown with rank vegetation, the only tracts suitable for human occupation being narrow isolated strips of land on the banks of rivers, or between the marshes, and no communi- cation is possible except along the watercourses. These marshy tracts, which extend westwards into Vitebsk and north-eastwards towards St Petersburg, were even more impassable ten centuries ago, and, encircling the old Russian city of Pskoff, formed its best protection against the repeated attacks of its neighbours. With the exception of the south-eastern corner, where Carboniferous rocks make their appearance, nearly the whole of the government consists of Devonian deposits of great thickness, the Old Red Sandstone, with sub- ordinate layers of various sandstones, and clays containing brown iron ore ; and the White Limestone, which contains layers of dolomite, marls, clays with deposits of gypsum, and white sandstone, which is extensively quarried for building purposes. As regards the fauna the Devonian deposits of Pskoff are intermediate between those of Belgium, the Eifel, and Poland and those of middle Russia. The whole is covered with very thick sheets of boulder clay and bears unmistakable traces of glacial action ; the bottom moraine of the Scandinavian and Finnish ice-sheet formerly extended over the whole of this region, which often takes the shape of ridges (kames or eskers), the upper parts consisting of Glacial sands and post -Glacial clays, sands, and peat-bogs. The soil is thus not only infertile on the whole, but also badly drained, on account of the impermeable nature of the boulder clay and the frequent occurrence of depressions having no distinct outlets to the rivers. Only those parts of the territory which are covered with thicker strata of post -Glacial deposits are suitable for agriculture. The rivers are numerous and belong to three separate basins to Lakes Peipus and Pskoff the rivers in the north- west, to Lake Ilmen those in the middle, and to that of the Dwina the rivers in the south-east. A great number of small streams pour into Lake Pskoff, the chief being the Velikaya, which flows from south to north and receives mimerous tributaries, which are used for floating rafts, a wide region being thus brought into communication with Lake Peipus and thence with the Narova. The Velikaya, which is now navigable for only 25 miles from Lake Pskoff, was formerly deeper. The Lovat and Shelon, belong- ing to the basin of Lake Ilmeii, are both navigable, and a lively traffic is carried on on both ; while the Dwina flows for 100 miles on the borders of the government or within it, and is used only for floating timber. There are no less than 850 lakes in Pskoff, with a total area of 391 square miles. The largest is Lake Pskoff, which is 50 miles long and 13 broad, and covers 312 square miles, having a depth of from 3 to 18 feet; it is connected by a channel, 40 miles