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 PASTA PATAGONIA 153 collectors of ports to all vessels of the United States, and if any such vessel sails without a passport the master is liable to a fine of $200. Every passport gives the name, age, residence, and occupation of the holder, with a descrip- tion of his person and appearance, which is intended to afford the means of identifying him. It is supposed to assure the holder of the support of his own government, and asks for him and entitles him to the protection of all governments or nations at peace with his own. In many of the European states the passport system has until recently been kept up, to afford the authorities means of surveil- lance over suspicious characters, and thereby to prevent conspiracies against the govern- ment, or provide the means of detecting them. The belief that passports have little efficacy for this purpose has been confirmed by recent experience; and the growing conviction that they are not so useful as they are inconvenient and oppressive has generally led to a practical abandonment of their use. One may now trav- el over Europe, with the exception of Russia, without once exhibiting his passport, unless circumstances direct suspicion toward him. PASTA, Ginditta, an Italian singer, of Jewish origin, born at Saronno, near Milan, in 1798, died at her villa near Lake Como, April 1, 1865. She received her first musical educa- tion from Bartolommeo Leotti, chapelmaster in the cathedral of Como. At the age of 15 she was admitted to the musical conservatory of Milan, and in 1815 began her public career at the minor theatres in Leghorn, Parma, and Brescia. The next year, appearing at the Ita- liens in Paris, she failed to attract notice; she was equally unsuccessful in London, and deci- ded upon returning to her native country for further study. When, in 1819 and 1820, she appeared in Venice and Milan, she was greet- ed with applause. Returning to Paris in 1821, and visiting Verona during the session of the European congress in 1822, she was remark- ably successful. Her triumph in London was scarcely less brilliant, and for several years she continued to sing alternately in Paris and London. In 1827, some business difficulty having occurred between her and Rossini, then director of the Italian opera in Paris, she ac- cepted an engagement at Naples, where Pacini composed for her his opera of Niobe. Her dramatic powers did not please the Neapoli- tans, though they were afterward fully appre- ciated at Bologna, Milan, Trieste, and Verona. At Milan Bellini wrote for her La sonnambula and Norma. Pasta won her last triumphs at Vienna in 1832. Her voice, which had always been more remarkable for energetic than me- lodious qualities, was now impaired ; and her last engagement on the Italian stage in Paris, in 1833 and 1834, was not on the whole suc- cessful. In 1836 she retired to her villa on the lake of Oomo. Her last engagement, from which she received $40,000, was with the opera in St. Petersburg in 1840. PASTEUR, Louis, a French chemist, born in Dole, Dec. 27, 1822. He took his degree in 1847, was professor of physical sciences at Di- jon from 1848 to 1849, and afterward of chem- istry at Strasburg till 1854, when he organized the new faculty of science at Lille. In 1857 he went to Paris as scientific director of the normal school; subsequently he was elected a member of the institute ; and toward the end of 1863 he assumed the chair of geology, physical science, and chemistry at the school of fine arts, and afterward that of chemistry at the Sorbonne. He acquired great celebrity, and received in 1856 the Rumford medal for his researches on the relation of the polariza- tion of light with hemihedrals in crystal and other researches, a French prize for his works on fermentation in 1859, and a Jecker prize in 1861 for his chemical labors. In 1873 he was elected an associate member of the acad- emy of medicine, and the government granted him in 1874 a pension of 20,000 francs. He is most widely known for his opposition to the doctrine of spontaneous generation, and his researches in fermentation. He maintains that all fermentations are processes connected with life, and not of spontaneous production, but that the living organism must proceed from a parent of the same kind. Therefore fermentation can never take place if all access of germs to a fermentable substance is pre- vented. He has invented a new process for the fermentation of beer founded upon his theories, a part of which consists in exclu- ding atmospheric air from the fermenting wort, as he maintains that fermentation can be con- ducted without the presence of free oxygen, and under certain circumstances proceeds more satisfactorily in an atmosphere of carbonic acid. He discovered that glycerine is one of the pro- ducts of fermentation. (See FERMENTATION.) He also made interesting researches on racemic acid, discovering that when racemate of am- monium is mixed with a small quantity of beer yeast and exposed to a temperature of 85 F. fermentation takes place, and the racemic acid is converted into laevotartaric acid. His prin- cipal works, besides his contributions to the Annales de cJiimie et de physique, are : Nouvel exemple de fermentation determine par des ani- malcules infusoires pouvant vivre sans oxyaene libre (Paris, 1863) ; fitudes sur le vin, ses ma- ladies, &c. (1866) ; Etudes sur le vinaigre, &c. (1868) ; Jfitudes sur la maladie des ters a soie (2 vols., 1870) ; and Quelques reflexions sur la science en France (1871). PASTILLE. See PERFUME. PATAGONIA, a territory of South America, extending from lat. 38 42' to 53 52' S., and from Ion. 63 9' to 75 30' W. It is bounded N. by the Argentine Republic, from which it is separated by the Rio Negro, E. by the Atlantic, S. by the straits of Magellan, separa- ting it from Tierra del Fuego, and W. by the Pacific and the republic of Chili, the dividing line with which last is the cordillera of the