Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XIII.djvu/258

 248 PENELOPE PENGUIN rot, in the Comptes rendus ; and further inves- tigation brought to light the curious fact that as- far back as 1832 a German, Lorenz Hengler, subsequently a Catholic priest, had not only invented and described the horizontal pendu- lum in Dingler's PolytechniBclies Journal, but had also made with it a series of observations on the attractive force of the moon. This publication attracted no attention owing to the backward condition of physical astronomy at that period, and was soon entirely forgotten. The writer of this article, by suitable altera- tions and additions, has converted the horizon- tal pendulum into an instrument of unprece- dented delicacy for measuring minute changes in the dimensions of solid bodies. By the ap- plication of braces the natural tendency of Zollner's instrument to vibrate has been great- ly reduced, and it has been provided with a means of bringing the pendulum to rest with- out friction ; spring stops, an index, and mi- crometer have also been added, and the size diminished. The reach of the most powerful microscope is hardly more than T^OTFS" of an inch, and the best mechanical means scarcely reach beyond -^ OVOTTO" f an inch i hut in a set of linear determinations made with this modi- fied pendulum, the probable error of the mea- surements proved to be only ^-^yjnJT.TroT ^ an inch. For further details, see Poggendorff's Annalen for November, 1873, and the " Ameri- can Journal of Science " for June, 1875. PENELOPE, a gallinaceous bird. See GTTAN. PENELOPE, the wife of Ulysses and mother of Telemachus. She was the daughter of Ica- rius, and having many suitors, her father prom- ised to give her to the one who should conquer in a foot race. The victor was Ulysses, and when her father urged her to remain with him and not accompany her husband to Ithaca, the hero gave her leave to do as she pleased. She indicated her resolution to go with him by covering her face with a veil to hide her blushes. While Ulysses was at the siege of Troy she was surrounded by importunate suit- ors, whom she deceived by declaring that she must finish a shroud which she was weaving for her aged father-in-law, Laertes, before she could make up her mind. But she unravelled each night all that she had done during the day ; and when at last the suitors discovered her stratagem, Ulysses opportunely arrived after 20 years' absence and killed them all. Some writers later than Homer allege that by Mer- cury, or by all the suitors together, she became the mother of Pan, and was repudiated by her husband on his return from Troy ; whereupon she went to Sparta, and thence to Mantinea, where her tomb was shown in after times. PENEEJS. See THESSALY. PENGUIN, a subfamily of web-footed, imper- fectly winged birds, inhabiting the seas around the rocky coasts, islands, and ice fields of the southern Pacific ocean, and the extreme por- tions of South America and Africa. Some of the earlier writers give this name to the auk (alca, Linn.) of the arctic seas, but it will here be restricted to its more modern application to the antarctic subfamily. In the genus apteno- dytes (Forst.) the bill is slender, longer than the head, compressed on the sides, and slightly curved at the point, which is acute ; the upper King Penguin (Aptenodytes Pennantii). mandible is clothed with short close-set plumes as far as the nostrils, which are in a lateral groove in the middle of the bill, and the lower is covered with a smooth naked skin; the wings are very small, fin-shaped, without quill feathers, having only short imbricated plumes with flattened shafts, and are unfit for flight ; the tail is very short and flat, of narrow rigid feathers; the tarsi very short and flattened; the toes short and depressed, the anterior uni- ted by a web, and the hind one very small and almost entirely connected to the inner side of the tarsus; the claws large, flat, and slightly curved. As in the other genera, the breast bone is deeply incised behind on each side ; the scapula is large and broad, and flat behind ; the bones of the forearm and arm are very flat, the former making with the latter a rather obtuse angle; the feet are very far back, and the whole posterior surface of the tarsus touches the ground when the bird stands ; the bones are heavy, filled with marrow, and without air cavities. The Patagonian penguins of Shaw and Pennant were different birds to which the same name had been given ; to avoid confusion G. R. Gray calls one the emperor and the other the king penguin, or A. Forsteri and A. Pen- nantii. In the former the length is 50 in. and the bill 5, in the latter 44 and 4^ ; the general color of both is slate above and white below, with the head and throat black, the latter in the first species divided in front by a point of the white feathers of the chest, and in the second ending in a blunt point; there is an orange-yellow stripe on the sides of the head, descending and passing gradually in the former and suddenly in the latter into the white of the