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 PYTHIA QUADRANT 121 books, one of which, describing the ocean, was probably an account of his first voyage, and the other, entitled Periplus, of his second. Polybius and Strabo treat the statements of Pytheas with contempt ; but in modern times it has become evident that he was a bold navi- gator and sagacious observer. He was the first who determined the latitude of a place from the shadow cast by the sun, obtaining the position of Massilia by the gnomon. He was also aware of the influence of the moon upon the tides. The few fragments of Pytheas now extant were collected by Arvedson (TJp- sal, 1824). PTTHIA. See DELPHI. PITHIAN GAMES, one of the four great na- tional festivals of Greece, held at Delphi, which was originally called Pytho from the serpent Python killed by Apollo near there. The legen- dary account attributed the origin of these games to Apollo, although there were tradi- tions referring them to Amphictyon, Diomedes, and other heroes. At first the Delphians them- selves decided the disputes and adjudged the prizes, but after the Crisssean war the man- agement came into the .hands of the Ainphic- tyons. Once, in Ol. 122, the games were held in Athens by the advice of Demetrius Polior- cetes. They appear to have lasted as long as the Olympic games, or till about A. D. 394. They were held in the Crisssean plain, which had a theatre for the musical contests, a race course, a stadium 1,000 ft. long, and probably a gymnasium, prytaneum, and similar build- ings. Some ancient writers tell us that they were first called Pythian games in 01. 48, when the Amphictyons assumed their management. Previously they had been held at the end of every eight years, but afterward at the end of every four. They were probably solemnized in the spring, and lasted several days. There were other Pythian games of less importance held in various places in Greece, Asia Minor, and Italy, where the worship of Apollo was established. PITHIAS. See DAMON AND PYTHIAS. PYTHON (Daudin), a genus of large tropical, non-venomous serpents, replacing in the old world the boas of the new. The pythons dif- fer from the boas in having four teeth in the intermaxillary bone, and in most of the sub- caudal scales being in pairs. (See BOA.) Q QTHE 17th letter and 13th consonant of the ? English alphabet. It corresponds with the Hebrew and Phoanician koph, and as it is seldom used except in conjunction with u, most grammarians are disposed to regard it as a superfluous letter whose place could be sup- plied by k. It does not occur in the Greek, old Latin, Slavic, Irish, or Saxon alphabet ; but it was introduced into the Latin at a pret- ty early period. The words which are now written with a q were spelt by the ancient Romans with a c, as anticus for antiquus, co- tidie for quotidie; and some words are still spelt indiscriminately with either, as locutus or loquutus. Varro and some other gramma- rians never consented to admit this letter into the Roman alphabet. Others regarded it not as a simple letter, but as a contraction of CD or cu; thus quis, according to them, was origi- lally cvis or qis. The Anglo-Saxons for qu wrote cw. Q never ends a word in English, but it does in French, as cinq. It is some- times used without u in the transcription of words from the Arabic and other oriental lan- guages, to represent a peculiar guttural sound. The letters with which it interchanges are c and Tc. As a Latin numeral it stands for 500, or with a dash over it (<j ) for 500,000. Used as an abbreviation, it signifies quantum, quod, qucB, que (and), Quintus, &c. QUA BIRD, or Quawk. See FIGHT HERON. QUACKEJVBOS, George Payn, an American edu- cator, born in New York, Sept. 4, 1826. He graduated at Columbia college in 1843, spent a year in North Carolina, and began to study law in New York. In 1847 he opened a private school in that city, and he continued to teach till 1868. He has been a contributor to various journals, and in 1848-'50 conducted the "Lit- erary American." He has published many popular school books, including text books of rhetoric and natural philosophy, arithmetics, grammars, and elementary histories. He re- ceived the degree of LL. D. from Wesleyan university in 1863. QIADI, a powerful ancient people of S. E. Germany, of the Suevic race. They inhabited the country between Mount Gabreta, the Her- cynian forest, the Sarmatian mountains, and the Danube (portions of Bohemia, Moravia, and Lower Austria), their neighbors being the Gothini and Osi on the northeast, the Jazyges Metanastfe on the east, the Pannonians on the south, and the Marcomanni on the northwest. Of the last named they were allies. In the reign of Tiberius the Romans erected a king- dom of the Quadi, and gave the crown to Van- nius ; but in the reign of Marcus Aurelius the Quadi joined the German confederacy against the empire, and in 174 were on the point of destroying the imperial legions in a great bat- tle when a sudden storm enabled the Romans to recover and gain a victory. The Quadi re- mained independent till their disappearance from history about the close of the 4th century. QIADRAM (Lat. quadrant, a quarter), the fourth part of the circle or an arc of 90, and hence an instrument employed for measuring