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 PESTH PETEN 349 sors. Attached to it are a botanic garden, a museum, and the Buda observatory and print- ing establishment. The national library has 200,000 volumes, and the university library 105,000. A new and beautiful building was opened in 1866 for the Hungarian academy ; and there are many other scientific and literary associations. The national museum contains varied collections, and Pesth is generally re- markable for artistic and intellectual enterprise and as a centre of the book trade. Among the numerous charitable institutions are orphan, insane, and blind asylums, and one for desti- tute public servants. Pesth is a great centre of railway traffic and of navigation, and the granary of the whole empire, the exports of flour averaging annually about 4,000,000 quin- tals. There are many steam flour mills and brandy distilleries, and cattle, wool, wine, leath- er, timber, soda, and potash are among the other important articles of trade. The " First Hungarian Leather Manufacturing Company " works up annually 100,000 hides. A large- f oundery is in operation, and silk, cloth, hats, oil, tobacco, and agricultural machinery are manufactured, though much of the latter is imported from England. There are four an- nual fairs. The increasing importance of the city led the English government to establish a consulate general here in 1871, and there are now several other foreign consuls. The principal languages are the Magyar and the German; English is much cultivated by the educated classes, as well as foreign languages generally; while the Slovak, Serb, and other Slavic dialects are spoken by many of the populace. The origin of Pesth is ancient. The Romans had a colony on its site, called Transacincuni. It is mentioned as a town in the llth century, and was destroyed by the Mongols in 1241, but having been rebuilt be- came flourishing at a later period, when Buda was made the capital of the kingdom. The diets and elections of kings were then held on the neighboring plain of Rakos, in the open air, nobles, magnates, and priests assem- bling in arms, and dwelling under tents. Af- ter the battle of Mohacs (1526), Pesth was for 160 years in the hands of the Turks, un- til the conquest of Buda (1686) ended their sway in Hungary. Early in the 18th century it was made a royal free city, and from that time its growth was continuous down to 1848- '9, interrupted only for a short time by a dis- astrous inundation in March, 1838. Its great revolutionary day was March 15, 1848. The Hungarian national assembly was opened there July 5. The city was evacuated by the revo- lutionary government and army at the begin- ning of 1849, reoccupied by the troops under Aulich in April, and repeatedly bombarded by Hentzi during the siege of Buda in May, on which occasion about 60,000 of the inhabi- tants found refuge in the " city grove," living there under tents. The Hungarian indepen- dent government established itself there and in Buda in June, but abandoned it in July. After the surrender of Comorn it witnessed the ex- ecution of Count Louis Batthyanyi (Oct. 6), of Csanyi, Perenyi, Jeszenak, and other pa- triots. At that time thousands withdrew to the rural districts, and Pesth was for a time comparatively deserted. After the disasters of the Austrians in Italy, however, it again became the centre of national agitation, culmi- nating in the assemblies of the county board, the commune, and the "national club," in February and March, 1861. In 1867 the em- peror of Austria signed at Pesth the Hunga- rian constitution, and he and the empress were crowned here on June 8. PETAU (Lat. PETAVIUS), Denis, a French chro- nologist, born in Orleans, Aug. 21, 1583, died in Paris, Dec. 11, 1652. He was trained from childhood to speak Greek and Latin, besides acquiring Hebrew and Arabic. In 1602 he obtained in a competitive examination a chair of theology in the university of Bourges. In 1605 he entered the novitiate of the society, of Jesus at Nancy, renewed afterward his course of philosophy and theology in the Jesuit university of Pont-a-Mousson, taught rhetoric successively at Rheims, La Fleche, and Paris, and from 1621 to 1644 he was professor of dogmatic theology in the Sorbonne. Besides several volumes of discourses and poems, and editions of Themistius and Epiphanius, he pub- lished Opus de Doctrina Temporum (2 vols. fol., Paris, 1627); Tabula Chronologic (fol., 1628); Uranologion (fol., 1630; 2d ed. by Hardouin, 3 vols., Antwerp, 1703); and Ra- tionarium Temporum in XIII Libris (2 vols., Paris, 1633-'4; several times reedited and corrected by the author, and translated into French and English). His great theological work is Theologica Dogmata (6 vols. fol., Paris, 1644-'50; best ed., 7 vols. fol., Venice, 1758 ; last ed., 8 vols., Paris, 1865-7). PETCHORA, a river of European Russia, which rises in the government of Perm, on the west- ern slopes of the Ural mountains, about lat. 61 40' K, Ion. 59 E., and flows into the Arc- tic ocean through a wide estuary in lat. 68 20' K, between Ion. 53 and 54 E., after a course of 900 m. After leaving Perm it flows very circuitously through the governments of Vologda and Archangel. There are many isl- ands in its lower part. Its chief tributaries are the Usa, Ishma, and Tzylma. PETM, a district forming the northernmost portion of Guatemala, in the department of Vera Paz, formerly the home of the Itzaes; estimated area, 20,000 sq. m. ; pop. in 1839, the date of the last census, 6,327, almost ex- clusively Indians. The whole district is well watered. Among the lakes, which are numer- ous, the most remarkable is that of Itza or Peten, in the centre of which is the island of Peten, whose rocky eminence the Itzaes chose for the site of their temples, and on which was afterward built the Spanish town of Flores. In 1698, after conquering the people, the Span-