PAWTUCKET, a city of Providence county, Rhode Island, U.S.A., on the Blackstone river (known here as the Pawtucket or the Seekonk), 4 m. N. of Providence and adjoining Central Falls. It is served by the New York, New Haven and Hartford railroad, motor-bus and truck lines and a steamboat line (for freight) to New York. Pop. (1920) 64,248 (33% foreign-born white, largely English, French-Canadians, Irish and Scots) ; 1930 Federal census 77,149. The city has an area of 8.6 sq.m., lying on both sides of the river, which in the heart of the business district makes a picturesque plunge of 5o ft. over a mass of rocks, providing good water-power. It is the second city of the State in size and in the value of its manufactures, which in 1927 amounted to $98,142,544. Textiles are the leading products. Almost every branch of cotton-manufacturing is represented, and there are many silk and rayon mills. Tennis racquets, ma chine tools and textile machinery are also distinctive products. The river has been improved by the Federal Government since 1867, until there is now a 16 ft. channel all the way to Narragan sett bay; and the State has built a pier. The city's parks cover 242 ac., and its most conspicuous building is a fine new high school on the river-bank, built in 1926 at a cost of $1,700,000. The assessed valuation of property for 1927 was $135,231,540. The first settlement within the present city limits was made on the west side of the river about 1670 by Joseph Jenks, an iron worker, and the village became a centre of skilful and inven tive ironmongers. In 1790 Samuel Slater found here the mechani cal skill necessary to reproduce the Arkwright machinery for the manufacture of cotton goods. His mill (still standing) was the first successful factory of the kind in the United States. The part of Pawtucket which lies east of the river was originally in Massachusetts, and was transferred to Rhode Island in 1862; the part west of the river was annexed to Pawtucket from North Providence in 1874; and in 1885 the town was chartered as a city. The name is an Indian word meaning "fall of the waters."
PAX, the name given in ecclesiastical usage to a small panel or tablet decorated usually with a representation of the Cruci fixion, which in the Roman ritual was kissed at the eucharistic service by the celebrating priest, then by the other clergy and the congregation. The use of the "pax" dates from the 13th century, and is said to have been first introduced in England in 1250 by Archbishop Walter of York. It took the place of the actual "kiss of peace" which was in the Roman Mass given by the bishop to the priests, and by them to the deacons and so to the laity, between the consecration and communion, and which survives in symbolical form at High Mass. In the Greek Church the kiss (Elpipn, aairca,u6s) takes place before the consecration, and now consists in the celebrant kissing the oblation and the deacon kissing his stole (see F. E. Brightman, Liturgies Eastern and Western, 1896). See the Catholic Encyclopaedia, s.v. "Pax." PAXO [PAxos], one of the Ionian Islands (q.v.), about 8 m. S. of the south end of Corfu, is a hilly mass of limestone 5 m. long by 2 broad, and not more than 600 ft. high. Pop. c. 5,40o. It produces excellent olive oil. Gaion (or, less correctly, Gaia), the principal village, lies on the E. coast, and has a small harbour. Towards the centre, on an eminence, stands Papandi, the residence of the bishop, and there are many churches with picturesque belfries. On the W. and S.W. coasts are remarkable caverns (Davy, Ionian Islands, i. 66-71). Ancient writers apply the plural form Paxi to Paxos and the smaller island now known as Antipaxo (Propaxos of the Antonine Itinerary). Paxos is the scene of the legend, in Plutarch's De defectu oraculorum, of the cry "Pan is dead." (See PAN.)